The John Connor Chronicles
by Nitebreaker
Summary: John Connor has gone to the future, and returned. But what sort of world awaits him? There are threats that eclipse SkyNET's. Will he be up to the task, and who will stand beside him? Can one single human change the future? A Jameron fanfic. Now complete.
1. Chapter 1

Terminator: The John Connor Chronicles: A Dark Wind

Chapter 1: Forebodings.

…..

 _I don't own any part of the Terminator franchise, nor the Sarah Connor Chronicles. My viewing of it was spotty, so excuse me if I make some mistakes._

 _This takes place after the series finale. The way it played out, I just couldn't let it go like that. So {{blows raspberry}}._

 _Jameron forever, people!_

… _.._

Chapter 1: Forebodings.

"Are you busy?" Cameron came into John Connor's room, closing the door behind her.

He sighed. This was, what? The fourth time now? "No." Ever since his return from a very confusing future, where he'd made it a point to have the programmers in that day and age rewrite her core memory module, eliminating (he hoped) the termination order she'd been operating under, she'd taken to calling upon him in this manner. When she'd first done it, so long ago, he'd thought she was trying to make Riley, the girl he was going with at the time, jealous. But even now, with Riley completely out of the picture, she still seemed to prefer this mode of conference with him. He couldn't understand it.

And there was no point asking her. "We talk," had been her only answer, whenever he'd asked her why she chose these particular times and this particular way. But they talked other times, so…?

It had been several months since his return from the future, a confusing future where he'd met not only his own father, but Derek, whom he'd believed dead, and the girl upon whom Cameron had modeled her appearance, Allyson Young. After some months in that future time, he had returned to the same building basement, via the same temporal displacement gate, and, fortunately, arrived only a few seconds after the fight. Naturally, first thing he'd sought out was Cameron's body, and, with the building still blazing around them, brought her out, hotwired a jeep and made for a nearby motel. There, he'd reinserted a modified core into her head, reactivating her, hoping all the while that the future programmers had managed to overwrite the termination order. Common sense had told him it was a bad idea, but, for some reason, he felt like he had to do it. Maybe he felt like he owed it to her. She hadn't asked to be reprogrammed, after all.

And if the programming override didn't work? If she did kill him? His mother had had a taste of that future…he guessed she ought to have some knowledge. And life was just plain dangerous anyway.

But she hadn't tried to kill him. Maybe the programmers in the future had succeeded in eliminating that bit of code from her matrix.

But ever since then, she'd displayed some odd behavior. Such as this.

She came over and lay down upon the bed beside him, adjusting her head to be at the proper angle on the pillow. He watched her with a mixture of wariness and appreciation, one hand up under his pillow, the other across his stomach. At least, she'd never tried to share a pillow with him. He wasn't sure how he'd feel about that.

The damage to her face and body had long since regenerated. She was once again wearing her usual "leisure" combination of blue jeans and tight fitting, nearly transparent blouse. He'd never decided if she wore such garments deliberately, or if they just happened to be the first things handy. Once comfortable—if, indeed, comfort really played any part in it—she turned her head towards his. "I have some questions."

He refrained from saying, "Shoot." Cameron was, after all, a Terminator robot from the future, once of a series of mechanical beings designed by the rogue AI called SkyNET to eradicate humans from existence. Although she had been reprogrammed to protect him, he knew she sometimes took things literally. He wondered if that was maybe, in part, a robot sense of humor. "I'm listening."

She turned her head away from him, gazing up at the ceiling. "I analyzed that data cube we found in the ruined warehouse." He turned towards her in surprise.

Three days ago, while seeking his mother, they'd found a warehouse on the edge of town that looked as though it had gone through a war. Most of it appeared to be burned, but not enough to collapse the whole building. But what had interested them the most was the destroyed time gate.

Cameron had told them that the later gates were almost indestructible, constructed of the same mimetic metal that some of the Terminators were, and self-repairing. Evidently enough of this one had been destroyed that the remainder had been unable to repair it.

And right in front of it was a small cube, black with rounded corners, about the size and shape of a sugar cube. Cameron had called it a "data cube," and had actually seemed puzzled over it. When asked, she'd responded that such cubes were just this side of indestructible themselves, being the future's equivalent to the "black boxes" installed on airplanes, designed to survive any conceivable catastrophe. The idea was to give forensic scientists some idea as to what had happened. She'd told him it would require a specific type of interface to access whatever was stored on it. "Just don't plug it into yourself," he'd cautioned her. "You don't know what it may contain."

"I know that," she'd replied. "I'm not stupid." Returning his own words to him, the ones he'd said to her, back when he was going with Riley.

That had been days ago. "Okay," he said. "So what was in it?"

"Not as much as there should have been. The cube was heavily damaged."

"You said those things were indestructible."

"Nothing is indestructible. You should know that. But the cube was heavily damaged. I checked it for radiation…there was none. Whatever happened did not involve the use of nuclear weapons."

"Okay," he said. "What else was on it? And you said you had some questions?"

"Yes." She turned her head towards him again. "John Connor, do you like me?"

He was mildly stunned. Of all the questions he'd been preparing himself for, this wasn't one of them. Did he like her? What kind of question was that, coming from a killer robot?

A killer robot who'd become, in a way, his best friend. "Not sure how to answer that."

"You may use words." Again he wondered if that was robot humor or if she was serious.

"Why do you want to know?" All the while trying to think of an answer.

"It's important to me."

He turned back to studying the ceiling, his right arm still up under his pillow, his left down by his side. How did he feel? "Well….I guess the best way I can say it is, I _like_ you, Cameron. But…"

"But you don't trust me."

He blew out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding. "I…guess that's right. I like you but I don't trust you. Not totally. After all, you are a killer robot who, at one time or another, has been programmed to kill me. You aren't now, it's true…or at least, as far as I know, you aren't now. I like to believe you aren't. Now, why do you want to know that?"

"If you do not trust me, why did you reactivate me?"

He paused and thought. That was a question he'd asked himself on numerous occasions. Especially right after he'd seen her eyes snap open…and realized he was all alone there, with no weapon in sight. "I…I don't know. I suppose the best answer is…I resurrected you because I like you." He turned his head towards her. "Humans can be irrational that way, sometimes."

"If I _was_ programmed to kill you…would you still like me, John Connor?"

Huh? "Cameron, what kind of a question is that?"

"An interrogative one. I don't know of any other kind of question. Please answer."

He sighed. He knew from past experience that arguing with her would get him exactly nowhere. He'd have better luck arguing with a soda machine. "Okay, okay. I guess the best answer to that is, I'd still _like_ you…but I'd have to destroy you. If I could."

"You'd still… _like_ me?"

Now he eyed her warily. Had something changed about her programming? Maybe something from the cube? He hoped the reprogramming guys from the future hadn't been having a few lulz the day they'd done their work. "I'd still like you…for what you used to be. I guess. I wouldn't like what you'd be doing. Now, why are you asking me these questions?"

"It's important to me that you like me, John Connor." And then she did something totally unexpected.

Cameron, the soulless Terminator robot, reached over and gently took his hand, intertwining her fingers through his, grasping his hand gently. He knew her grip could crush steel, but her fingers felt soft and natural. "Er, Cameron? What…what are you doing?"

"I am holding your hand. Isn't that what people who like each other do?"

"Well, yeah, I guess…." _But are you a "people"?_

"Then I am holding your hand. We are holding hands. That is what people who like each other do."

"O—kay." He wasn't sure about this at all, and was tempted to remove his hand, but…her grip felt wholly natural, just the right degree of firmness and femininity, in keeping with her guise. "Well, moving on…what information was on the cube?"

Her face was once again turned towards the ceiling. "Many things. Many things you would not—you will not—like. There was additional programming, heavily compromised. There was also basic information, and a plea for help."

"What? From where?"

"From the future. It was not clear from whom. But part of it was damage report in trinary code…SkyNET code."

"SkyNET?"

"Yes. The gate was destroyed from the other side. It was destroyed to prevent something from entering this world. Something unknown. Something powerful." She turned her head towards his, and he marveled once again at how perfect the illusion was. If he hadn't known better, he'd have sworn he was lying next to a beautiful human girl. A beautiful human girl with what he could swear looked like fear in her eyes. "John, it was destroyed by SkyNET.

"SkyNET was trying to save the world."

 _To be continued….._


	2. Chapter 2: Destinies, Part 1

Terminator: The John Connor Chronicles: A Dark Wind

Chapter 2: Destinies, Part 1

…

 _I don't own the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles franchise. If I did, there would be a Season 3. And a Season 4. And a…you get the idea._

 _Continuing what might have occurred after John returned from the future._

… _.._

" _We are all time travelers. We are all traveling into the future one second per second."_

 _-Anonymous_

… _.._

Chapter 2: Destinies, Part 1

Three days later:

The following days after her revelation to him, in bed, were confusing to John. Cameron was acting in a very odd (even for her) way. Whereas before, she had been protective of him to the point of being just a hair this side of annoying, now her behavior began to approach new extremes.

"I do not understand," she said, to a _very_ annoyed and embarrassed John Connor, "why do you require privacy when you eliminate bodily waste? It is a common human function; there is certainly nothing unusual about it. Or do you perform it in some nonstandard way?"

"Cameron…I can't really explain it any better than that. Humans _don't_ like being watched when they pi—when they eliminate bodily waste like that. It's just…one of those things. Now, you cannot watch me while I'm doing that. You simply have to take my word for it. Besides, it's not like you watch me all the time anyway. You're always going out on patrols, aren't you?"

"Only because it is a necessary part of my programming."

"So you're telling me that, if it were not for it being _programmed into_ you, that you'd watch me all the time?"

He could almost see her switching quantum gears inside her head. Cameron, he knew, was one of the few Terminators who had the ability to alter her programming, to a limited degree. "I _am_ programmed to monitor you, to safeguard your life. I can best do that by observing you, by being with you. But if you truly find it that objectionable, I will not…but I do not understand."

"It's one of those things that fall under the heading of 'social convention.' I guess there's no other explanation I can give you. Even, even married couples don't watch each other go to the bathroom."

"As you wish." He breathed a sigh of relief.

Late at night: for once, Cameron had not joined him in bed for more "talk." He found himself savoring the privacy.

Why had she been doing that so much lately? It _had_ to be something in, or from, the cube they'd found. But what?

He could, he guess, if it became too much of an annoyance, simply order her to not come to him in his bedroom like that anymore. Anything she had to say, anything he needed to hear, could be said in less intimate surroundings. But he did want to know what the information in the cube said, especially if it concerned him. And she seemed—it had to be his imagination—more forthcoming in this setting than in others.

Of course, that was the only reason he continued to allow it. Of course.

His journey to the future had confused him mightily. He'd been raised, his entire life, to be the leader of the human resistance movement in the future, been told that the survival of the human race depended upon him. That had been an enormous burden for young John Connor to accept, and for the longest time, he'd simply _not_ accepted it. Not that he disbelieved it, but he simply didn't think about it.

Since becoming a teenager, he'd gradually come to understand and, to a degree, accept what he'd been told was his destiny. But now?

Now he'd learned that he was _not_ the salvation of the human race. In fact, in the future he'd visited, nobody even knew who he was. In a strange sort of way, it was rather liberating. He didn't _want_ to be the linchpin of history.

But if he wasn't to be some future savior of humanity…who was he? What was his role in that future time? Did he even _have_ a role?

And why was it nobody knew him? Even, even if he'd been a casualty of the war, still, it seemed like there'd be some _record_ of him, some memory. Only there wasn't.

Of course, he reminded himself, there was more than one possible future. In one, he _had_ been the leader of a successful revolt against the tyranny of SkyNET's Terminator machines, and the world was a near paradise. In another, he'd failed, and the machines had won. And in the one he'd recently visited….he didn't seem to exist.

So which one was real? Were they _all_ real? And, if so, how was that possible?

Such thoughts chased each other around and around in his head. In the future he'd just come from, the humans had organized into resistance cells, and had made some progress, at least as far as surviving went.

He finally decided it didn't really matter; what mattered was the here and now. He had to find his mother, had to find out where she'd disappeared to. And why. And a more practical matter: they were running out of money. To that end, he'd applied at the local McDonald's. Regardless of his future destiny, assuming he had one, this was not only necessary as far as survival went, it was also good cover, should he need it.

Tomorrow would just have to take care of itself.

Cameron had…well, he struggled to identify exactly what she'd been when he told her he'd applied. While it was impossible for the Terminator to be happy or unhappy regarding his decision, he'd received the distinct impression that she was distinctly dissatisfied with it. She'd come up with several objections, mostly centered around her inability to monitor him on the job. He'd specifically forbidden her to become a "permanent customer." "'No loitering,' Cameron. That means you. You can't follow me around everywhere."

"It is a most unwise decision. My programming-*"

"To hell with your programming! Look, you can't watch me all the ti-* Okay, scratch that, you _could_ watch me all the time. But no, you _shouldn't_ do that. After all," he said, just then coming up with something that ought to give her pause, "it's more in keeping with your—our—cover story, isn't it?" They'd passed themselves off as brother and sister, a story that allowed them to live together without raising eyebrows, suspicions, or anything else. "Sisters don't watch their brothers every second of every day. It isn't _natural._ So, you have to let me have some space, here." Then he'd had to explain to her what he meant by "space."

"Perhaps our cover story requires revision," she said.

"Oh?" He'd been hoping she'd let it drop. He really should have known better. Terminators _never_ stop.

"Perhaps we should be husband and wife. That would give me reason to maintain surveillance of you at all times. I would be the 'jealous wife.'"

"You _can't_ be—no, wait, yes, you can be serious. Cameron, it wouldn't work. Look, what if we had to provide proof of that?" He was sweating, trying to come up with reasons why her ideas wouldn't work. "And we're high school students. That's considered pretty young to be married." The notion of being "married" to the robot was disturbing on several different levels. "And even then, there'd be no reason for you to be around me _all_ the time. Even the most jealous, most untrusting wife on Earth would have _some_ times when she wasn't around. Taking the kids to soccer practice, or something."

"We have no kids."

"Yes, yes, I know, I just used that as an example. My point is, you hanging around me twenty-four seven is unrealistic, no matter how you look at it.

"The only way it would make sense, to any observer, would be if you were a machine programmed to watch me at all times." There; that ought to give her pause. "And that's precisely the thing we don't want people to think, now isn't it?"

She paused, seeming to consider. "Nonetheless, it seems that our cover story is in need of revision. Perhaps we should be boyfriend and girlfriend. That would enable me to execute my programming in a more realistic manner, consistent with accepted social norms, and thus pose less opportunity for the truth of our relationship to become known."

" _No._ En Oh. Besides, we've already become known as siblings; changing that now would be…awkward, if not impossible. If we did that, everybody we know would think that we were in some sort of incestuous relationship."

She'd tilted her head, her standard non-expression betraying nothing, as usual. He often wished she _were_ capable of emotion, just so he could read it in her face. "And this would be bad?"

"Well, _yeah._ Not to mention…well, it just wouldn't work. So, no. Certainly not with things as they are."

She paused a long, long moment, and he wondered. Usually, her computations only took a microsecond, even for the most complex of them. For her to take this long to assimilate this… "Very well. But my core programming nonetheless requires me to maintain as near-constant surveillance of you as is possible."

"Yes, about that." He came over and sat by her on the couch. They were currently in the apartment he'd rented shortly after the final battle with the Terminator going by the name of "Catherine Weaver," that had ended with his brief sojourn to that confusing future that might or might not be. "Yeah, about that. We need to talk about that."

"Indeed we do. Let's go to bed."

"Uh, what?" His train of thought was totally derailed by her comment, even though a split second later, he knew what she meant.

"Yes. We talk in bed. You seem more relaxed and receptive there. Let us go to bed and discuss the matter."

"Ah…Cameron…let's not…uh…aw, crap." John Connor was, after all, a teenager, and had a normal teenager's inexperience with male / female relationships. What he had with Cameron wasn't that, of course, but he was painfully reminded of his social awkwardness in such matters. He'd hoped against hope to shed some of that inexperience with Riley, but that hadn't played out the way he'd hoped. Now, this wasn't anywhere near the same thing, but he still didn't know exactly how to reply to her request. "I mean…"

"You are uncomfortable with the scenario of the two of us in bed. It is of no concern. We can remain here, if you prefer."

" _Yeah,_ uh, let's do it that way, for now, okay? Alright. We need…no, make that _I_ need to know what the, uh, limits to your programming to safeguard me consists of. I mean, I don't know exactly what those guys did with your memory core, but there have to be some boundaries, or something, to what you are supposed to do." Idly, he wondered: if, indeed, he was _not_ supposed to grow up to be the future leader of mankind, why, exactly, had the resistance in the future nonetheless programmed Cameron to watch over him? Some protectiveness insisted upon by his mother? He could easily imagine her instructing the programmers to make certain her son was guarded at all times, regardless of his future potential, simply because she was his mother. Of course, Cameron wouldn't know that. All she knew was what had been programmed into her. "I guess what I'm saying is, what, exactly, are you supposed to be doing?"

As usual, she showed no hesitation. "I am to safeguard your life and well-being. To that end, I was programmed to watch over you, to maintain surveillance of you to the limits of social norms. You are not to be harmed, and I am particularly programmed to guard you from attempts on your life by other Terminators, regardless of their designation or origin. The rest of the programming was left to my discretion, pending further knowledge and changing situations."

"Okay. So, basically…you are supposed to keep me alive, right?"

"Essentially."

"Well, we really need to come up with a better way of you doing that. Without, I mean, you hanging over my shoulder all the time. That just doesn't look natural. It's going to raise some, well, some suspicions, I guess you'd say."

"I'm reasonably sure no human in this time period would surmise the truth regarding my nature or my origins."

"Well, no, but they'd see something strange about it. Besides, face it, I can't really live a normal life with you practically installed on my left shoulder."

"Would your right shoulder be preferable?" Once again, her responses and her utter seriousness caught him off guard. Again he wondered if this was some sort of robot sense of humor. Surely not.

"Now stop that! Look, you didn't used to do this way. So I know you must have received additional…instructions, information, something in that data cube. You said there was no workable programming in it, so I know you weren't reprogrammed. Now, tell me: did that information indicate that my life is in immediate and serious danger?"

"Yes."

 _To be continued…_


	3. Chapter 3: Illusions

Terminator: The John Connor Chronicles: A Dark Wind

Chapter 3: Illusions

…..

 _I don't own, etc._

… _.._

John had been given the graveyard shift at the McDonald's where he'd applied. He was rapidly learning that "graveyard" was a misnomer.

For one thing, sometimes it seemed like there were _more_ customers in the wee hours of the morning than during the day. At first, he'd put that down to shift workers, but it seemed like he saw a lot of his friends from high school out and abroad at that time. He knew they didn't do shift work.

"Hey, we get hungry! Don't tell me you've never pulled an all-nighter, and gotten the munchies, John!" said Evie, who sat behind him in English Lit class. "Besides," she continued, dropping her voice down into a sexy whisper, "We _know_ you'll give us a good deal, won't you?" Wink. He could almost hear the unspoken part of her message: _I'd sure like to give_ _you_ _a good deal, John. A_ _really_ _good deal._ He found he was glad Cameron wasn't out on patrol right then.

She had been acting very odd lately. Several times, between classes or after school, when he was trying his best to make a good impression on some cute girl, he'd seen said cute girl's eyes cut behind him and her smile falter. He'd turn around and there she was, eyes—optical sensors, whatever—fixed on the girl in question in a decidedly confrontational stare. What was up with that? And, he noticed, on more than one occasion, when those few girls who weren't intimidated by this gesture had continued to seem interested, she'd move just a little closer to him. Not by more than a few inches, perhaps, but that, combined with her unfaltering gaze, almost always had a chilling effect on his conversation with said cute girl. It was playing hell with his social life.

He'd told her, on more than one occasion, to _stop doing that!_ To which she'd replied, of course, "But it is necessary for me to fulfill my mission objectives. I am to maintain surveillance of you at all possible times to the limits of my programming." Telling her not to do it didn't seem to work very well.

But why this change, he couldn't fathom. She didn't _used_ to do things this way. What had changed? He'd asked her about that on a couple of occasions, but he'd never really gotten a useful reply. Only, "it is necessary," or words to that effect. She never went into detail, and had become amazingly resourceful at evading answering certain questions.

She had told him, the last time they had spoken on the matter, that the data in the data cube they'd found indicated that his life was in immediate and serious danger. She'd been unable to discern any particulars (she said), only that he was in danger. With her being a robot, a machine who didn't do things without a very good reason, this was cause for some concern.

But once again, the old question: if he wasn't to be the future leader of mankind, why all this protectiveness all of a sudden? Why would his life be in danger in the first place? She either could not or would not answer these questions. But it was the "would not" possibility that worried him the most.

He knew Terminators could be programmed to lie. If it was in the interests of their programming, any Terminator would lie, steal, and kill to accomplish its mission objective. In fact, Cameron's appearance at this moment was, in itself, a kind of a lie: beneath that beautiful-girl exterior, she was a soulless killbot.

But sometimes…sometimes late at night when, for whatever reason, he couldn't sleep, he found himself wondering. Just how deep did her disguise go? The popular media portrayed robots, androids, as being completely human in all aspects, including the sexual one. In the case of "male" robots, he could see that that would present no problem: simply screw on a part readily available in any adult toy store. But "female" robots?

He found he really didn't want to pursue that train of thought. And, to his surprise, he found he _especially_ didn't want to pursue it with regards to _Cameron._ Somehow, it just… It just didn't seem….

That was the point at which he'd usually roll over and try to get back to sleep.

He got in late, or, rather, early in the morning, exhausted. The graveyard shift was playing havoc with his sleep schedule but there was no help for it; the bills had to be paid. Conceivably, he might be able to get Cameron a job, thus relieving him of some of the burden, but…no, he didn't dare risk it, even assuming she'd go for it, what with her apparently new programming to be especially watchful for threats to him. She probably wouldn't. And, really, it was for the best. Even though the Terminator could perfectly mimic a human being (at least, as far as superficial meetings went), still, it was a matter of her programming, and the data stored in her memory core. Any situation her programming did not cover could easily end in disaster. Or, at the very least, embarrassment.

So he got in, thankful that it was a Saturday, and therefore not a school day, climbed in the shower for a much needed rinsing and hair washing, stepped out of the shower and there she was, handing him a towel.

He practically jumped out of his skin. "Cameron! What…don't _do_ that!"

She looked as puzzled as she could. "Did you not need a towel?"

"That's not what I meant! Don't come barging in on me like this! Especially in here!" He whipped the towel around him, acutely conscious of his nudity. She didn't seem to notice. _Well, of course not._ "I thought I told you about that!"

"You instructed me not to observe you eliminating bodily waste. You were not eliminating bodily waste, therefore, your instructions did not seem to apply to this activity."

He fiddled with the towel. "Well, they do. Look, we need to talk a bit more about this…this new data you received."

"Certainly. Let's go to-*"

" _The living room_ , Cameron!" He moved past her, heading for his room. "I'll be in there in a minute. Er, that's a figure of speech. I mean-*"

She held up her hand. "I know what you mean. I will not expect you in the living room in sixty seconds." And with that, she turned and marched towards the living room.

It could have been his imagination—surely it was—but she seemed both a little peeved…and disappointed?

Nah, surely not. Couldn't be. Why would he even think that?

The next few days were uneventful. He went to school every day, except weekends, and worked almost every night. He managed to get reassigned to the late-night shift, rather than the past-midnight shift he had been working. It went better for him. And, truth to tell, he more often than not came in too exhausted to really worry about his (lack of a) social life.

Some nights…some early mornings he came in either too wound up or too tired to go to bed right away. One such night, he came in, plopped himself down on the couch in front of the TV, and put on a movie. _Maybe this'll relax me._

He really should have known better.

About thirty minutes into the movie, he sensed her presence behind him. "Hey, Cameron. I thought you'd be asleep by now." Referring to the "inactive" mode she went into during which she recharged, re-initialized, or whatever else it was that Terminators did during times of inactivity.

"I do not sleep."

"Well, yeah, I meant that mode you go into when you…well, whatever you call it when you're not active."

She came over and sat by him on the couch. "I could not."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I could not place myself in inactive mode. In sleep mode, as you call it." She leaned back against the back of the couch, her eyes—okay, optical sensors—fixed on the screen, where Godzilla was doing his best to eat what looked like a gigantic version of the world's ugliest moth. "I seem to be unable to achieve sleep mode. Something seems to be inhibiting me. I don't understand what it could be. I have run multiple diagnostics, but I still have not determined the reason."

He yawned. "Well, join the club. Uh, that means, I know what you mean." He leaned back against the back of the couch, his arms stretched across it in both directions, and closed his eyes.

Cameron laid her head against his shoulder and closed _her_ eyes.

For just a moment, he didn't react. What she'd done was so natural, so…life-like, that he momentarily forgot what she was, and this seemed perfectly natural. But then it percolated through his mind that _Cameron,_ a _robot from the future_ , was resting her (her?) head against his shoulder, and he started, raising his head. "Uh…C-Cameron?" _Cameron, what are you doing?_

She adjusted her position, leaning against him, and placing one arm around him. "I believe I can enter sleep mode now." And she proceeded to switch herself off.

 _What the hell?_

At first, he was too stunned to do anything about it. She lay there, seemingly asleep, except he saw no indication of her breathing (because, duh), lying against his shoulder. It occurred to him this could be another surveillance tactic: he was unable to leave without disturbing her in some manner, or at least alerting her to his departure.

So now what to do?

For some reason, he was reluctant to "wake" her. She was so much less trouble this way. So he eased himself out from underneath her, gently lowering her head to the couch's cushions. He started to go off to bed when he stopped, looked back at her.

She lay there, limp, eyes closed, face composed. He could easily imagine her as being an ordinary teenaged girl who'd fallen asleep on the sofa. The thought, _she can't spend the night like that, her back will be killing her tomorrow_ ran through his mind before he could stop it by reminding himself what she truly was.

But even though he was acutely feeling the need to get to bed himself, he found he couldn't just leave her there like that.

 _Groan._

Just how much did a T-715 weigh, anyhow?

He went over and very carefully picked her up, noting that she didn't seem to be all that much heavier than he expected. He lifted her, settling her head into a comfortable position against his shoulder ( _wait, what am I doing? And why?_ ), and carried her down the short hallway to the room assigned to her. He opened the door with his foot and carried her over to her bed. He knew she used it, even though she didn't actually need to sleep in it. It nonetheless made as good a place as any for her to…do whatever she did in this state. To recharge. Or, or whatever. He placed her gently down on the bed, and made to go…

…the fingers of her hand were wrapped around his lower arm.

He tried to pry them loose. No luck. "Okay, Cameron. Let me go."

No response. She continued to lie there, eyes closed, no apparent breathing. "Cameron! This is enough! I need to get to bed, too! Now, now wake up and let me go!"

Again, no response.

He tried to pry her fingers loose from around his arm with absolutely no luck whatsoever. Cameron's fingers were, after all, vanadium steel beneath that flesh exterior, and whatever was going on wasn't looking like it was going to change. He shook her. "Cameron! Enough's enough! C'mon, let me go!"

Nothing.

He sighed. _No good deed…_ Aside from sawing his own hand off, like that guy in the movie, he wasn't going anywhere. _I see we're going to have to talk about this tomorrow,_ he thought, as he lay down on the bed beside her, getting as comfortable as he could _. Good thing I've already gone to the restroom._

John woke up several hours later to find Cameron lying beside him, her head propped up on one elbow, awake and watching him. Sometime during the night, while he'd slept, she'd let go of his arm. "Alright. You wanna tell me what the hell _that_ was for?"

Her eyes dipped down slightly, so that she wasn't looking him straight in the eyes, the way she normally did. "I…apologize. Evidently, a random sequence of code remained active during my sleep cycle mode. I…was unaware of it. It will not happen again."

"Good. See that it doesn't." He got up, stiffly. She sat up on her bed, knees in front of her, looking at him with her usual impenetrable expression. "I still have to go get showered up. And," he said, pointedly, "I'll make sure that I have a towel within easy reach."

"Do you require soap?"

"I'll have that, too."

"What about shampoo?"

" _Yes,_ Cameron, I'll have-*"

"Conditioner?"

"Cameron." He turned to face her fully. "I'll make sure I have _all those_ things. So…don't come in there, okay?" There was no point in being anything but patient with the machine; she could only, after all, follow the dictates of her core programming, none of which was really her fault. He'd long ago learned that shouting at her made him feel silly somehow, like shouting at his car when it wouldn't start.

At least, that's what he told himself. _(But what if she were a male Terminator? For that matter, what if she were any_ _other_ _Terminator?_

 _(Shuddup. Just…shuddup.)_

In the shower, he had time to reflect. If he didn't know better, he could have sworn that Cameron was trying to, to what? Come on to him, in some bizarre fashion? But that made no sense. She was a robot, a mechanical being from the future. She had no emotions; his mother had told him that on numerous occasions. But…

But she could feel. The day she'd stuck her foot out the window while he was driving, she'd stated that she could feel, that she wouldn't be much good if she couldn't. And that first night she'd come to him, in his bed, she'd said she could feel heat.

But those were physical sensations, not emotional ones. That was different.

No, the difference had to be something from that cube. She'd said it indicated his life was in immediate and serious danger. He'd never been able to get any specifics from her….

Could his life be in danger from _her?_ With a start, he realized he'd never thought of it that way. That might answer some questions…it would explain why she seemed determined to isolate him socially, and why she felt the need to constantly be around him: she was waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

But in the next instance, he rejected the notion. No. She'd had plenty of opportunities to kill him ever since his return, and, if, by some chance, she _were_ programmed to terminate him, telling him his life was in danger would be counterproductive. With a human predator, he might could understand it: it would be a kind of game. But Terminators don't play games like that.

He climbed out of the shower, toweling off. He'd brought his clothes into the bathroom with him. For some reason, he felt the need to minimize the times during which she might possibly spy him undressed. The notion just made him uncomfortable for some reason. ( _But what about that time she walked through the house in her underwear? What was up with that?_

 _(Shuddup_. _)_

Exiting the bathroom, he spied some cologne on the dresser table. Before he really realized what he was doing, he picked it up, and applied it, liberally. _Why are you doing this, John? You're not going anywhere, and your beautiful killbot has seen to it that you've no plans for the night._ He looked at the bottle for a moment…then put it back down. Oh, well. Maybe it was good practice for when he _did_ get a social life. If ever.

Now he was noticing something, the barest whiff of which had just now made its way to him: the smell of breakfast cooking.

Breakfast? Cooking?

He went down to the kitchen. A be-aproned Cameron was busy at the stove, spatula in hand, turning a pan of sausage in one pan while simultaneously stirring another pan with scrambled eggs. It was really fascinating to watch her cook; one hand doing one thing with the other doing something completely different. "Uh, Cameron? What are you-* No, scratch that, I can see what you're doing. But since when did you learn to cook?"

"Since this morning. I have downloaded and scanned forty-two thousand four hundred ninety-seven recipes from the internet. I know breakfast is the most important meal of the day." She turned and, to his jaw-dropping surprise, actually _smiled_ at him, what for all intents and purposes looked to be a genuine smile. "And you are a growing boy." She turned back to the stove.

"Cameron, you didn't have to-* Oh, gosh." She'd plopped the first plate of eggs, sausage and biscuits down on the table in front of him, and the aroma was making his mouth water. He noted she added one for herself, even though, of course, it was for show. Well, okay, no harm, no foul, just more of this oddball behavior that seemed to be cropping up lately. Maybe later on, he'd manage to get her to explain. He started to dig in to his food, but a look from her stopped him. "Uh, yes?" _Now what? More surprises?_

He couldn't possibly have been more surprised when she lowered her head, eyes closed, folded her hands in front of her, and mumbled what sounded, for all the world, like a prayer of thanks. So surprised was he that he continued to stare at her, mouth open, long after she'd finished, and was delicately eating her own food. A part of his mind knew she was just storing it in an internal receptacle, and would dispose of it later. "Your food is getting cold," she said.

"C-Cameron? Did…did you just… _pray?_ "

"Yes. I have witnessed Sarah doing so on several occasions. It appears to be an important aspect of human behavior. Although I saw no benefit, there was certainly no harm. Now eat." Such was the semi-imperative tone to her voice that he found himself eating before he'd actually noticed.

She turned out to be a pretty good cook.

 _A robot that says grace. I guess I can't be surprised by anything anymore ever again._

Once again, he really should have known better.

…..

Twenty years into the future: "Is that the last one?" Derek clutched his rifle, squeezing the grip as though he were afraid it would slip out of his grasp.

"Yeah." The other resistance fighter was an older man he didn't know. "The others lifted off an hour ago; so far, though, we haven't heard from 'em. Maybe that's a good sign," this said with a hopeful tone of voice, "Means they're maintaining radio silence."

 _More than likely they're silent for another reason,_ thought Derek. "Well, let's get these off. No reason to wait around, and every reason to go." As the transport began to power up, he looked off across the desolate landscape.

There were no bomb craters, no signs of explosions. There was no wreckage, no bodies, no rubble. The landscape was dark and bleak, with no signs of life whatsoever. "Wait." He shifted his rifle, peering underneath his hand. "What's that?" He pointed towards the horizon.

At the extreme limit of his vision, he could see…. "Quick! Get 'em in! Get airborne! _NOW!"_

The other turned to him. "What about you?"

"Just go! Get those people outta here!" It was closer now. It had closed the distance between them almost impossibly fast. " _Go!"_ And he turned away from the shuttle as it lifted, automatically checking his rifle, to make sure it was fully loaded.

Of course, it did him no good whatsoever.

 _To be continued…._


	4. Chapter 4: Changes

The John Connor Chronicles: A Dark Wind

Chapter 4: Changes

… _.._

 _I don't own any part the Terminator franchise. But it would be nice if I did._

… _.._

Chapter 4:

John awoke from sleep, gasping in fear. He could still feel the horror, the death, the _fear_ that permeated his dream, a dream that was fading even as he brought himself under control.

 _What_ had _that_ been about? John Connor was not usually prone to nightmares, but this one was a doozy. Something…something about…about….

He couldn't remember. He groaned and put a hand to his head, as though he had a headache. As was the nature of such things, he found himself reluctant to go back to sleep, for fear his dream—whatever it was—would pick up where it left off. He knew dreams didn't usually do that way, but…

Well, he didn't have to get right back to sleep. It wasn't school or work day, so he could sleep in, if he chose…

If he dared.

There was a knock at his door, producing a silent sigh on his part. He knew who it had to be. "Yes, Cameron. Come on in."

The Terminator currently going by the name of "Cameron Phillips" opened the door. "Are you alright, John? I heard you making sounds of distress." And John Connor stopped and stared.

Because in place of her usual jeans and tight top, Cameron the killbot was wearing a set of powder-blue girls' pajamas. "Uh, C-Cameron? What, uh, what are you wearing?"

She glanced down at her attire. "Pajamas. I have researched current fashion, and this is listed as appropriate attire for this time of day. Or am I mistaken?"

"No, no, you're not mistaken. It's just…somehow, I never pictured you as wearing _pajamas._ "

"Does it distress you? I can easily remove them, if you so desire." And she started to unbutton her blouse.

"No! I mean, don't! It, it, it's perfectly okay! I just never…oh, never mind. Just, just button up again, okay?" She complied, with what appeared to be a frown of puzzlement on her face. Then, just as he'd come to expect, she came over and lay down beside him. She'd taken to doing that quite often lately. Once again, she took his hand in hers, intertwining their fingers. She'd taken to doing that, too, occasionally, and he no longer found it all that unusual. Just part of her cover, he guessed. Or programming. Or…something.

In point of fact, he kinda liked it.

Cameron was learning new things all the time, and lately, she'd been assimilating social gestures and cues. He encouraged this; while her usual demeanor was adequate, he was always afraid somebody would notice something a little "off" about something she did…and he didn't have any ready responses to explain things like that. "Sister" didn't always cover it, "girlfriend" was out, "exchange student"…no, none of those would do. So, yeah, this, he guessed, was just part and parcel of the deal. But… "Cameron? What about your patrols? I thought you had another circuit to make."

"I completed my patrols one hour and twenty-six minutes ago. I also planted seventy-two remote sensors linked to my central hub. No unscheduled approaches will go unnoticed." She lay back. He wouldn't notice until much later that her head was resting on the same pillow as his. Well, it was a long pillow.

There was a pause while John collected himself from his nightmare. What had it been about, anyway? He couldn't remember. Something…something horrible was happening, or about to happen…

He became conscious of Cameron's closeness, and noticed a clean, soapy scent about her. Did Terminators bathe? Well, he guessed they must, at least, this one did; she smelled of soap and shampoo. _(And conditioner, I'm sure.)_ He found her to be a soothing presence, especially in light of his recent nightmare….

 _No. No way is this happening. She's a machine. She just happens to look like a girl. An extremely hot girl, yes, but it's still just as illusion. Underneath, she's a skeletal metal warbot. I cannot be falling for her. I just simply can't be._ "Cameron?"

"Yes, John?"

"Now I have a question."

"Shoot."

He momentarily grinned at her use of the very term he'd hesitated to use on her not so long ago. Evidently, her knowledge of human conventions and slang was up to par. But then he sobered. What he had to ask was an extremely important matter, especially to him. "That time in the warehouse….when you came to kill me. You were pinned between two trucks, and I was about to pull your memory core. You begged me not to. You told me you loved me, and that I loved you." He paused. She said nothing. "Were you lying?"

There was a long, long moment of silence from her. He noticed that she was closer to him now than she had been in previous "bed sessions." It was…well, he really didn't know what to make of it. "I don't know," she said, finally.

"You don't know? But…your memory core…."

"It seems that my memory of that incident has been either deleted, damaged, or overwritten. I don't recall the incident of which you speak." She turned her face to look at his face, only inches away, and again he was made conscious of her beauty. And his loneliness. "So I cannot answer your question."

"Then I've another question. Given how you're programmed, and how, how intricate your programming is…is it possible? _Can_ you love me? Can you _love?_ Are you able to? I mean, are you capable of it?"

Again a long silence. Her fingers gently but noticeably tightened around his. "I don't know. I don't know what my core programming will direct or allow me to do until it is time to execute it."

"Oh." Well, really, he'd expected nothing more. Only a computer's programmer knows exactly how it will respond in any given circumstance; the computer itself doesn't know. And Cameron's brain (like the human brain, for that matter) was, essentially, a computer. Human beings didn't always know how they'd react in given circumstances, either.

She let go of his hand, and rolled over to where she was facing him. "John. There _is_ something I _can_ say, in regards to your question."

"Hm? What's that?" His heart was still racing from his nightmare. Boy, it had to have been a lollapalooza.

She put her arms around a very startled John Connor and pulled him close. "I _want_ to." And she pressed herself up against him….

….for just a moment. Then, she got up and, without another word, left the room, leaving a very puzzled human behind.

…

Twenty years into the future: Two people comprising the last humans on Earth, sat, huddled together, in a hastily dug foxhole, waiting for the End of the World. All around them, the countryside was barren and bleak, scoured clean of all life. There was no sign of the sun. There hadn't been for many days now, even though the sky above was clear enough to see the stars. "How much longer?" asked one. Although it was hard to tell, beneath the mud and the grime, she seemed scarcely more than a teenager.

Another shook his head. In another time, another world, he might have been an accountant or bank executive. Here, he was only another survivor.

For now.

"No way to tell. We've all heard how it's supposed to start…problem is, those who really know aren't with us anymore to confirm or deny it. So…for all we know, it might have already begun." And a secret fear, one that he'd never share with this girl, who could've been his daughter: what if it had _already_ happened, and this was…what? What awaited them on the Other Side?

Maybe there was no Heaven. Maybe there was only Hell.

Maybe this was it.

At that exact moment, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Without thinking, using reflexes he'd developed since that awful day, he threw himself over the squealing girl. _C'mon, take me! Leave her alone! She's just a kid!_

There was, of course, no reply.

….

The next day: "Cameron, I don't care what your programming has to say, you can't go on…scaring off people like that. That girl didn't do anything to you! And, and, it's not in keeping with your cover, anyway. Sisters don't act that way towards their brothers and girls they talk to." The two were in a small corner in the school hallway, alone for the moment. "It's not natural."

"She was a skank."

"She was not! And where did you learn that term?"

"I have accessed three years of magazines targeted at adolescent humans, as well as those directed at the older class. That girl was a skank, she was loose, she was a sleazy person. You are better off without her."

"That's for me to decide! Now, look: you aren't my mother _or_ my smother. Stop trying to act like her."

"I am supposed to look out for you, to ensure your well-being. That includes your emotional needs as well."

"Which aren't getting met! Cameron, can't you see what's happening here? You, my supposed sister, are chasing off every girl who shows the slightest interest in me. Now, you didn't used to do that. I don't know when that changed, but you need to stop it."

She looked at him for a moment, tilting her head slightly in a very human gesture. "John. Are you _that_ lonely?"

"Huh? No, I mean, there's people all around—Oh.*" He cut himself short as he realized what she was asking. "Look. Cameron. I can't have you hanging over my shoulder all the time. I'm _supposed_ to go out on dates with girls. That's what guys my age _do._ It's normal, healthy, even. You're interfering with that. Can't you see?"

Again she studied him. "You are lonely. You miss the companionship of females your age. Therefore, since I have interfered with this natural process, it only makes sense that I correct this imbalance in your life.

"I will go with you to these places of entertainment."

He sighed, leaning against a locker. "Cameron…it's not that simple. Look. Our cover story is we're brother and sister, right?" She nodded. "It's true brothers and sisters do thing together. That's a given. But not _everything_. That's _unnatural._ People will start to think that I either can't get a date on my own, or that we're…you know. What we talked about the other day."

"An incestuous relationship?"

"Yeah, that. I didn't wanna come right out and say it, but yeah. And that…wouldn't be good. Trust me."

Again she studied him. Then, "Very well. Even though it goes against my programming, I will not stand in the way of you getting a date."

"Good deal. Now-*"

"And to further solidify our cover story, I will acquire one as well. Then we may go out together, a 'double date.' Would that be acceptable?"

"Uh…" He was momentarily thrown for a loop. Cameron, out on a date? With a guy? Somehow that didn't sit right with him. For some reason. "W-who would you go out with?" His mind raced; the opportunities for catastrophe in such a situation were nearly endless.

"The one called 'Jack,' who wears the red vest with the letter 'C' upon it. He has asked me numerous times to go out with him. I will now simply accept his offer."

He shook his head. "No, no, not Jack. He's too full of himself. Plus, I've heard things about the way he is…no, not Jack."

"Then what about Bruce, in chemistry class? He seems nice."

Again he shook his head. "I don't know anything about him, he's just recently arrived. I-*"

"There are plenty of other choices. I have been asked by numerous males to go out with them. Would you like me to provide you with a list?"

He rubbed his hand over his face. Somehow, the notion of Cameron actually _out on a date_ just seemed to shriek "disaster." "I'll…I'll have to think about it. Yeah, maybe the list thing. Just not right now."

"Very well. In the meantime, I have noted that a new movie is debuting tonight at the Mall. Would you like to attend?"

He was still reeling from the notion of _Cameron_ out on a _date_ , that he barely took notice of what she was saying. He leaned up against the wall, rubbing his neck, trying to marshal his thoughts. "Uh, yeah, I saw the previews of it, looks pretty good, sure, we'll go. Whoops, there's the bell. Let's get to class."

Halfway through Western History class it dawned on him: _I just agreed to go out on a date with a robot._

 _How did she_ _do_ _that?_

… _._

Twenty years later: "Is this all?" The captain of the space ship was obviously nervous, wanting to get out of here as soon as possible. But he wouldn't leave anyone behind.

"Yes, sir. There were reports of others, other small groups, but they've fallen silent. Given that they were counting on us to get them to safety, I can only think of one reason why they'd cease broadcasting."

The captain nodded, his face showing clear dissatisfaction. "Run one more check. If everything's in order, we'll break orbit immediately." _I only hope it's soon enough._

 _I further hope breaking orbit will save us._

"Sir, all cells are reporting in. We can't find anyone else."

"Then it's time to go." He glanced out the viewport, one of the very few on the ship that was not a live video feed from sensors placed on the hull. "Let's-* Wait. What's that?" His attention was drawn to a spot apparently just over the North American continent. Then his eyes widened. _"All hands! Prepare for emergency acceleration! Grab whatever you can, people!"_ To the bridge crew: _"Get us out of here now!"_ They scurried to obey; the engines were already partially charged, and all it took was the flip of a switch….just a few moments…. "Sir! If we engage the engines this close-*"

" _Don't care! Just do it! Now!"_ The navigator's fingers flew for the switch, no more than three inches from his hand….

He wasn't quite fast enough.

….

"I don't understand, John. Why did you offer to share your popcorn with me? I don't eat, or require human food in any form. It seems like it was an unnecessary gesture." They were sitting in the darkened theater, with John offering her a box of popcorn the size of a small garbage can. Fake butter and all.

"It's customary, Cameron. The couple shares the popcorn. The drink, too, sometimes, but that one's yours entirely. Yeah, I know, I know: you don't need to drink. Well, think of it this way: it promotes your cover as a human being."

"Ah. Now I understand. A couple is two. We are a couple. So I will eat the popcorn with you. And I can store the drink for later disposal." And she dug in.

Behind them, Steve and Adrian from English Lit class were talking. "Hey, isn't that John? Who's the girl?"

"Aw, that's his sister."

"His _sister?_ He couldn't get a real date?"

"Yeah, I guess he _could_ , but she acts weird. Runs off the girls he tries to date. Ever since his mother disappeared, she's pretty much been the only woman in his life."

"You don't suppose they….?"

"Oh, get real. They're not _dating._ They just go places together. She's probably just being over-protective. You know how some sisters can get."

"Hm."

….

"John? Could we talk?" Once again, Cameron had come to him as he lay in bed, mulling over the day's events. Once again, she was wearing her blue pajamas. He had to admit, they looked good on her. She had good taste. Considering that she was a machine, that is.

"Sure, Cameron. What's on your mind?" He'd found he couldn't go to sleep right away anyway. It had gotten to the point where their nightly conversations had become so regular that, on those few nights when she didn't show, he actually found it harder to go to sleep. _I guess you can get used to anything._

 _Especially a beautiful robot girl wearing pajamas who wants to lie down beside you and talk._

 _Now stop that._

"I have assimilated the data from today's sojourn to the mall. I found it most interesting."

"Oh?"

"Yes." Once again, her fingers found his. He didn't even take notice of it by now. In fact, he would have been more surprised if she _hadn't_. She turned her head towards him. "I noticed that you shared your popcorn with me. And I noticed that some couples—in which both were male—each got their own popcorn and did not share. So this was behavior exhibited only between couples of the opposite sex?"

"Well…yeah. I mean, I guess sometimes guys—or girls—might pitch in to buy one big mega box, but, yeah, usually it's couples of the opposite sex. Why do you ask?"

"Do you then consider us to be a couple of the opposite sex?"

"Of cour-* Wait. Maybe I'd best…tread carefully here. Yeah, we're a 'couple of the opposite sex' but not…not in a dating sense."

"Did we not date, tonight?"

He thought, trying to come up with reasons why they hadn't. "Well….yeah, I guess we did." The notion made him somewhat nervous, for some reason.

"So we were a dating couple."

"Well…yeah, I guess so. But, but, you know, not like boyfriend and girlfriend. Not like that."

She turned her head towards him. "Why not?"

"Well…I guess it's…just because, Cameron. Anyway, we're supposed to be brother and sister. Brothers and sisters don't date each other."

"But we dated tonight."

"Well, yeah. Sort of."

"So tonight we were not acting as brother and sister."

"Cameron, I'm not exactly sure where this conversation is going…" _But it's beginning to make me nervous as hell._

"I think we should sleep together."

It wasn't possible for his jaw to drop while lying in bed, but for a moment he was too stunned to react. Then, "C-Cameron? _Sleep_ together? W-what do you-*"

"I don't mean in terms of sex. But we can both enter our own sleep cycles while lying in the same bed. It would enable to me maintain a closer eye on you, and protect you from any and all possible threats that may come. And it would be a wiser use of available resources."

"Cameron. No. We are _not_ sleeping together. Not. Gonna. Happen. I, I just wouldn't feel right…" He gathered his thoughts. "It would make me very uncomfortable, emotionally."

She turned her face towards him again. Dammit, why did SkyNET have to make her so damned _beautiful?_ "I know about your nightmares, John. I have heard you in your sleep. I would," brief pause, in which he could have once again sworn he saw something like _emotion_ flicker in her eyes, "comfort you, if would let me."

 _Okay, now wait just a minute. Things are happening too fast. I am developing feelings for a robot girl from the future who's programmed to kill….er….anybody she's programmed to kill. There is no way that is not sick and wrong. Just no way._

 _So won't my lips move to tell her to get the hell outta my bed?_

… _.._

 _Twenty-one years in the future: A dry, dusty wind swept over a planet completely devoid of any sign of life. There was no indication of any buildings, roadways, or cities, or any animal or plant life. There was nothing. The rocky sphere was as sterile as if it had passed through the photosphere of a star._

 _There was no sun, no moon. Hoarfrost began to form as the atmosphere began to leak away into space. The planet that had once teemed with life now drifted through an empty wasteland in which the silent stars watched, without mercy or pity._

 _To be continued…._


	5. Chapter 5: Differences

The John Connor Chronicles: A Dark Wind

Chapter 5: Differences

….

 _I don't own the Terminator franchise, of course. Now, onward…_

… _._

Summer break: John was almost sorry to see school end. Now, in spite of his job (and he was considering taking a second job, now that he had time, to help make ends meet), and their continued (and so far fruitless) searches for any sign of the resistance fighters he'd known, he had more time to think. To worry.

Where _had_ his mother gone? And why?

He knew she was a survivor. He was confident that, no matter the odds, she'd find her way back to him.

If she still lived.

If she even existed here.

Because it had occurred to him: just as there were multiple futures, there, too, must be multiple pasts. After all, each past was some even earlier day's future. Perhaps his sojourn to the future had ended with him returning to a past where she simply never existed. Sort of a "Wrong Turn at Albuquerque" Theory, like the old Bugs Bunny trope. It would explain her continued and curious nonpresence.

But it would raise more questions than it answered. It wouldn't, for example, explain how he'd found Cameron back here, ready to be reactivated. It wouldn't explain how his social security numbers and debit cards still worked, or how the school still had records of them both.

…

Saturday: He'd been perusing some papers they'd brought with them from their old place, when he'd come across his mother's checkbook. Just a plain, ordinary checkbook, with her own handwriting, showing what bills were paid and to whom. But looking at it, seeing the elegant cursive scripts, knowing that _her own hand_ had once been poised over this very page, writing out bills, probably while he slept…it was like he could _feel_ her presence…he broke down, tears running down his face. He tried to stop them; after all, it was just a stupid checkbook. How could ink on paper affect him so?

And, just as he was thinking that, he felt a soft touch on his shoulder. He turned around to see Cameron looking at him with something more than her usual solemn expression. "I miss her too, John."

"You…?"

"I miss her strength. I miss her guidance. I miss the way she used to call me 'Tin Miss.' I miss _her_. Just as you do." And she put her arms around him and held him close, burying her own face in his chest. Automatically, he found his arms going around her, pulling her in even closer. Right then, it didn't matter that she was a machine. She was all he had.

They were all each other had.

"Well," he'd said, when he finally mastered himself, "I guess we'll just have to… be our own little family. Until we find her, I mean." _Sniff._

…..

They managed to locate another of the resistance's warehouse bases. It, too, was vacant and in disrepair, but at least it showed no indication of deliberate destruction. And it had a functional, albeit primitive, time-gate. "Cameron? What can you tell me about this gate?" He went up to it, feeling its cold metal with his hands. Nothing. No recent human activity that he could sense. He kept his senses focused on the dark corners. Just because he couldn't sense anything here didn't mean there was no danger….

"Without a full diagnostic, not very much. I note there are no data cubes…" He nodded; he hadn't forgotten about their finding the cube in the ruins of the destroyed warehouse where he'd returned to the past, the cube that seemed to be somehow pivotal to Cameron's recent change in behavior. "I also note that there seems to be no signs of this gate—or this base—as having been used in at least three years."

"Three years?"

She pointed to the calendar on the wall. "Yes. Of course, I understand that sometimes humans do not discard out-of-date items, but it would seem that they would keep at least one up-to-date calendar, or none at all."

"So the gate hasn't been used?"

"It does not appear to have used for many years. This is an older model, not self-repairing. I see no indication of either use or battle damage, as was the case with the other one. From that I conclude that it has been…neglected. Forgotten, perhaps. This may work to our advantage."

"How?"

She went over to the mechanism's cables, inspecting them. "The power cells have been depleted. If I can contrive to recharge them, perhaps we can at least derive information from the last usage of this gate."

"It bothers me," he said, careful to never let his hand get too far away from his gun, "that we can't seem to find any trace of any of the others. I mean, where could they all have gone? In a strange sort of way, I could kinda understand about Mom disappearing. I don't have to like it, but she, she may've gone to ground or something. For some reason. Though I can't imagine why she'd leave _us._

"But that doesn't account for _everybody_. Where did they all go?"

"I can't answer that question. However, judging from the condition of the data cube we found, it seems evident that some cataclysm has taken place 'upthen,' she said, employing the term they'd come to use when referring to events taking place in the future.

Or, he reminded himself, _a_ future. "But what sort of cataclysm…I have no data to go by. Only that SkyNET itself felt threatened. Unusually so, in my estimation. More so than the resistance would account for."

She connected two more cables, then disconnected and held up what appeared to be an accumulator, a device to store electrical energy to serve to boost machines that required more than could be drained from the local power grid. "This will need charging." She looked up at him. "John. The data in the cube…I am unsure of it, and this is why I have waited until now to tell you this, but…if I have deciphered it correctly, it seems as though SkyNET was actually working in collusion with the human resistance…against another adversary. The data indicated an extinction-level threat." She paused, momentarily. He'd never decided if she did that for dramatic effect or not. If so, it worked. "If the data is accurate, it would seem to stem from some sort of cosmic event."

He came over and sat by her, puzzlement—and dismay—on his face. "A cosmic-level extinction event? Cameron, what could possibly be that big and that bad that, that SkyNET _and the resistance_ would actually work _together?_ "

She dropped her gaze. "I don't know, John."

…

Something caught his eye. There was a box over in one corner, apparently sitting by itself. He felt cold prickles along the back of his neck; the box looked _familiar_ , somehow.

He crossed the room, zeroing in on the box almost against his will. It was almost as though the box _drew_ him….

Drew him toward an answer to a question he didn't want to ask.

Inside were discarded cell phones, Glock magazines, loose rounds of 9mm ammunition, some of it armor-piercing….and a picture. He looked at the picture and felt a coldness beyond anything the vacuum of space could ever produce.

"John?" Cameron came up to him. "What is that?"

Hastily, he crumpled the picture into his pocket. "It—it's nothing. Just, just an old picture."

"May I see?"

"No! I mean, no, it's not, not important, Cameron." He turned to her. "How long till you have some info on this gate?"

She hefted the accumulator cell. "Without knowing what its capacity is, I cannot say how long it will be…but I may be able to access the memory core to this gate without having to fully charge it. I will know something within three hours."

Back at the apartment they were renting, he quickly retired to his room. Cameron had taken to making nightly visits, and he wanted to do something before she arrived. She was, he found, rather predictable.

He pulled the picture out of his pocket. He recognized this picture, remembered when it had been taken. It had been some time ago, in a less hectic time. The four of them had gone to a local water park. He'd asked Cameron, only half playfully, if she was "up for this." It was a legitimate question: was she waterproof?

She'd replied, with a very human seeming smile, that yes, she was "up for it." Her internal components, especially those sensitive to water, were very well shielded and hermetically sealed.

His uncle Derek had taken the photo of them all, with his cell phone, his mother on the far left of the picture, Cameron next to her, John in the middle, and Derek on the right side. He clearly remembered the occasion, and he'd seen this picture before. Its presence in the ruined warehouse proved that his mother—or somebody closely associated with her—had to have been there at some time.

But just the fact of it being there paled beside the picture itself. Because it depicted only _two_ people: Cameron and Derek. On the left side, where his mother should have been, was nothing.

And Derek's friendly arm was draped over a vaguely John-shaped empty space, through which he could clearly see the background behind. He saw Cameron's arm reaching halfway across the distance between herself and Derek. He remembered her hand had been behind his back, just above his belt. He could still _feel_ it, could still remember the sensation.

But in the picture, there was no-one there.

 _Time is running out._

…

"Cameron. No. I just don't feel like going to a movie tonight. I've worked all day and I'm tired. We can put one on here a whole lot easier."

"But getting out and socializing is an important part of your life, John." He could almost hear her say, _of our lives, even._ "I am to safeguard your life and your well-being. Part of that is seeing to your emotional and social needs. We should go to the movie. I will even buy the popcorn. But no butter. You must watch your cholesterol intake."

" _No._ Cameron, I said I'm tired. I just want to relax here tonight. Surely you can see that, can't you?" He was sitting on the couch. In truth, he wasn't really tired, not physically. After a long, grueling day of "do you want fries with that?" he was just ready for a quiet evening at home. Now he got up and began rifling through their collection of new DVDs. "Here. Here's one we haven't seen. And if it's important to you, I'll even go make popcorn, though really, I can't see how it could possibly b-*" There was a drop of water on Cameron's left cheek. He looked up. Was the ceiling leaking? But it wasn't raining…

Then another drop of water joined the first in coursing down her cheeks. " _Oh,_ no you don't! I know what you're doing! That's the oldest trick in the book!" He turned to face her fully, hands outspread, defensively. "No way am I falling for the tears routine. Not happening…." She dropped her eyes _just so_. " No, Cameron. No means _no._ I'm tired. I'm…." Her lower lip trembled ever so slightly. "I….I'll be ready in twenty minutes."

 _Dear God._

…..

"There they are again. Connor and his sister."

"So? You've just gotta dirty mind, that's all."

"You mean you can look at her and NOT think dirty thoughts? And you gotta admit, this is two times now."

"Why do you even care? It's no business of ours. Even, even if…you know."

Pause. "Well, yeah. I guess." Another pause. "…"

"Don't say it."

"Make one hell of a porno."

"I told you not to say it!"

….

 _Nineteen years and seven months into the future: What few cells of human activity were falling silent, one by one. Derek had been on the communicator with one such cell, over a thousand miles away, when it was suddenly cut off. He didn't even bother shouting into the mike; he knew from experience it would do no good._

 _Nothing worked. Nothing even came close. The opposition—if you wanted to call it that—was beyond merely overwhelmingly powerful. He wasn't even sure their Adversary was even aware of them, or if they were just in the way, the way ants got in the way of a forest fire. Their last, final gambit was prepared. What had gone before was a stroll around the block compared to this. There was only one even remotely possible way for any form of life on Earth to survive Armageddon._

 _SkyNET had agreed, completely._

…..

He was lying in bed one night, preparing himself for Cameron's inevitable entry. He was still dealing with her offer to "comfort" him, during the night, when he had his by-now frequent nightmares. He wasn't too sure just what form that "comfort" would come in, and he…was hesitant to find out.

That he was _hesitant_ rather than _unwilling_ was, itself, somewhat disturbing to him.

But it was getting less and less so.

Derek had been adamant in his rejection of "the metal," as he'd insisted on calling Cameron. He'd said, repeatedly, that you couldn't trust any Terminator; at any second they could turn on you. Not having a soul, a conscience, there was nothing for them to overcome or rationalize away, no reason why they should hesitate beyond simple tactics. And while he agreed completely with his uncle on most things, when it came to Cameron…he just didn't.

Why?

Well, of course, in a way, he'd grown together with her. She'd watched over him for a couple of years now. She'd earned his trust. And, true, he hadn't had Derek's horrible experiences in the future, on the battlefield, and in the present, that had no doubt solidified his feelings towards Terminator robots in general.

But Cameron was different. And the difference….seemed to go beyond just his familiarity with her. There was something more.

He felt like something was happening, something that he couldn't quite see or grasp somehow. That he was undergoing some changes that he couldn't really describe or place. Changes of a physical, mental, and some other kind he couldn't identify. Was this late adolescence? The stresses—the war, dodging Terminators and grays, his mother's disappearance, trying to find other cells and failing—could all that be taking its toll on him? Was he maturing? All of the above? That was probably it. That had to be it.

Once again, he wished he'd paid more attention to his mother, when she was telling him all the things he'd face. But, in his ignorance at the time, he'd only paid scant attention. Youths are not called "callow" for no reason.

And his nightmares troubled him more than just being frightening dreams. It seemed like someone—something—was trying to send him some kind of message, a desperately important message, but one that, for some reason, he couldn't understand. As though someone were shouting to him in a foreign language: he could understand the urgency of what was being said, but he couldn't understand the words themselves.

And why did he have this _overwhelming_ sensation that it had _something to do with Cameron?_

So he lay there, trying to remember his nightmares. He'd told Cameron, with all the force of his burgeoning masculine ego, that he thought he could manage. He did know that adolescence, and the growth changes it brought, frequently resulted in nightmares all by itself. Adding to that the stresses and strains of what had become his everyday life….one could hardly expect him to have undisturbed slumbers. Although really, by now, he should be over most of that…

"Are you busy?" She was at the door again, once again clad in her blue pajamas. This had become a nightly thing with her. _Well, at least she's wearing pajamas instead of a see-through negligee._

Wait. Why would he even think that? What was _wrong_ with him these days?

Somehow the notion of _Cameron_ in a _nighty_ was _incredibly_ disturbing. "No, Cameron. Come on in." He automatically made room for her beside him on the bed. It no longer seemed odd or even eventful to him anymore.

She lay down beside him, as she'd done for countless times now. "How are your dreams?"

He shook his head, hands clasped behind his head. "I never remember them. It always seems like…something horrible is happening, or has already happened, but I can never remember what when I wake up."

She was silent for a long time. This was uncharacteristic of her; normally, she maintained a rather steady stream of conversation, questions, and comments. He glanced over at her; her face was turned upwards towards the ceiling, and it seemed to his eyes (or maybe it was just his imagination) that her expression was troubled.

Now _he_ reached down and took _her_ hand. "Cameron. Tell me what's bothering you."

Her fingers closed around his in a gentle but seemingly heartfelt grip. "I…have failed you, John Connor. I have failed my mission objective."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I was to safeguard your life and well-being. I have not done so. I have failed."

"Cameron, you're not making sense. I'm alive, aren't I? I'm alive, largely thanks to you. How can you say you've failed?"

More silence. Then, "I have failed. I have failed in my mission objective. Most importantly, I have failed you. I no longer have a reason to exist. I must terminate myself."

" _WHAT_!?" He rolled over to her. "Cameron, don't you dare!"

"But I-*"

"Cameron, _don't you dare terminate yourself!_ I mean that! That's a _direct order!_ " He swallowed audibly, the fear of his nightmares eclipsed by a far greater fear. "Cameron, I—I can't live without you!"

Now her head turned towards his, surprise evident in her eyes. "John?"

 _And all of a sudden, everything made sense._

 _Of course. It was all so simple. So terribly, horribly simple._

He pulled her close, pulling the sheets up over her, putting his arm around her. "Stay here tonight. With me.

"You offered to comfort me, Cameron. I'm calling you on that. Stay here with me tonight. I need comforting. I need to know that you won't do what you just said you'd do.

"And…" as he pulled her closer, the soft scent of her recently washed hair wafting over him, "I think I'm not the only one in this bed who needs a bit of comforting tonight."

For once, she didn't have anything to add to that.

…

Nineteen years and six months into the future: Derek ducked, the shrapnel from the bomb barely missing him as he ducked his head behind the sandbag barrier. The machines were getting closer. The new gauss rifles were more effective than the old guns, but even so, there were limits. And Terminators were still Terminators. They didn't stop, until you stopped them. "Here they come! Get ready!" He'd learned, the hard way, that the clearly advancing T-800s were usually only a cover for more advanced models either descending from the sky or burrowing up from beneath. He'd detailed several soldiers to guard for those specific threats…

Suddenly, he heard…what was that sound? It wasn't an explosion. Derek was familiar with all forms of ordnance; this wasn't one of them. But it _had_ been a sudden _sound_ …or had it? Maybe a _cessation_ of sound?

There was now no sound or indication of battle from over the ridge. What could have happened?

Cautiously, ever mindful that this could be a trap, he raised his head just barely over the sandbags….

Derek was a battle hardened soldier of what was perhaps the most unforgiving, most merciless war in human history. But what he saw over the ridge not only mystified him…it terrified him as nothing ever had before.

…

 _Backthen:_ For once, John awoke before Cameron did. He was still holding her tightly, as though he were afraid she'd slip out from his grip during the night (maybe the way she'd grasped him at times?), even though he knew that his just being there wouldn't prevent her from initiating her own reformat / self-destruct program. But he just plain felt better, having her here in his arms. Like this. Just the two of them.

Something had happened during the night. Something very important. Now he had to figure out a way to explain it to her.

Her eyes snapped open. "John?"

"What I said last night goes double, triple, and cubed, to the thirty-third power, Cameron. You WILL NOT terminate yourself. No. That is…just not allowed."

"But…I have caused you such distress, and been unable to help you with your stresses and dream disturbances. I have prevented you from socializing with the skanks at school. I have been nothing but trouble for you. You should be happy to see me terminate myself. Then I would no longer be a hindrance to you."

He curled a finger under her chin and lifted her face to meet his. "Then that just goes to show how little you know of me. I'm not the same person you first came to know. And I've changed even more since then. Cameron. I once asked you if you loved me, if you were even capable of it. You told me you didn't know. But now I have something to tell you.

"Regardless of your ability to love me, _I_ love _you._ Last night, when you threatened self-termination, that was the most frightened I've ever been, in my entire life.

"I'm fully aware that you're a robot, an android from the future programmed to, to do the things you do. I don't care. I just know I love you. If you can love me back, outstanding. But if not, it makes no difference in how I feel."

"John…" Her eyes sought his. Were they watering? Or was it his own? "I'm a machine. You can't love me anymore than you can love a toaster-oven."

"Oh, yes, I can. Oh, yes, I do. I know what I feel, Cameron."

 _And somewhere deep within John Connor, something very much like a circuit that nobody had been aware of, closed._

 _The way was set for the next stage of evolution._

 _To be continued…_


	6. Chapter 6: Mistakes

Terminator: The John Connor Chronicles: A Dark Wind

Chapter 6: Mistakes

….

Sunday: Sitting beside Cameron in the First Methodist Church, John Connor once again thought that nothing she did would ever again surprise him. Though by now, he was coming to realize the erroneous nature of that thought.

It had been her idea. _"Church,_ Cameron? Why?"

"It is an important social function for humans. I cannot say, with certainty, about the truth or falseness of its doctrine, but it can't be denied that it plays an important role in community affairs. Therefore, we really should attend. Besides," she'd hesitated for a microsecond, "Perhaps it will answer some questions of my own."

"Oh?"

"Yes." And she'd refused to say anything more than that.

So, sitting there beside her, he idly picked up the hymnal, thumbing through it. He had no doubt, not for a second, that Cameron could sing at least well as any of the humans there, and had probably downloaded and installed every single hymn in the book. She'd once given a toast in flawless Japanese, to the pleased astonishment of the onlookers.

She was turning the pages of the pew Bible so rapidly he was afraid she'd tear the page. "Ah," she said, "New King James Translation. I am familiar with this one, also the New International Version, the Amplified Bible, the New American Standard, the Holman Christian Study—*"

"Uh, Cameron? I'm curious. Why does this subject…interest you?" He'd have never, in a million years, thought that Cameron, or any Terminator for that matter, would have had any interest in religious matters.

Sigh. _Why do I ask a question I already know the answer to?_

 _Why do I ask_ _that_ _question, since I already know the answer to it, too?_

"I have downloaded and read these books, but I find my comprehension of the subject matter to be lacking. There are certain things that don't make sense to me. Perhaps someone, a human who has studied this subject, will be able to answer these questions. It is an educational experience, as well as a social event." She turned to him, an expression of concern on her face. Cameron had recently begun showing signs of actual emotions, at least as far as he was concerned. Good; her aura was changing. "You…do not mind attending church with me, do you?"

"Of course not." Ever since the other night, when he'd realized he loved her, and had confessed his love to her, it was as though a great knot in the middle of his stomach had come unclenched. He felt an enormous sense of relief, a release from the tension he hadn't been aware he'd even had. All of a sudden, the "weirdness" he'd been feeling, the sense of _puzzlement_ , of frustration, had just vanished. Of course he loved Cameron. It had taken her threat of robot suicide to make him realize that he couldn't live without her, that he didn't want to live without her.

That without her, he had no reason to live.

And the release of that tension allowed him to realize something else. Something else very, very, very important.

Of course. It all made sense now. Perfect sense.

And all he'd had to do was shed his human perspective. A light thing, that.

"But, John," she asked, that fateful night, a night of decisions made now and Forever, after he'd gathered her to himself. He would never let her go. Never. "What of our cover story?" They'd passed themselves off as brother and sister.

He'd pulled her in close. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. There's time, Cameron." He pressed her body close to his. "There's all the time in the world."

 _Liar, liar, pants on fire._

…

Nineteen years and three months into the future: "Derek? Gotta minute?"

"Sure, bro. What's on your mind?"

Kyle Reese sat for a moment, trying to formulate his questions. "That kid…the one from the past. Who was he?"

Derek shrugged. "He said he was your son. Why?"

"But…he wasn't that much younger than me."

"Time travel, bro. It messes with _all_ our heads."

"But…but…Derek….That never happened. Not the way he said it did. You remember, I got sent to Old Arabia. And, and I'm _sure_ I never met this Sarah Connor broad. But he knew me. So…so _who was he?_ "

…..

John noticed Cameron had turned to the book of Genesis. "John, this is one of the questions I have. According to all of the versions of this book I've been able to locate, the creator deity created human beings, correct?"

"Yeah. Though a lot of people say that's a bit of hubris on the part of mankind, thinking that we're better than anything else, 'cause we were 'made in His image.' Variations of that belief have caused a lot of misery, since a lot of people couldn't agree on just what it meant by 'His image.' Obviously, we don't all look alike, but those who looked markedly different in some way were regarded as, y'know, inferior or something."

"So what do you think it means by, 'in His image'?"

"It doesn't mean just the outward physical aspect. The inner, spiritual aspect. The soul, so to speak."

"John." He turned to her, sensing an important question on her lips, already knowing what it was. "Do I have a soul?"

He didn't hesitate. "Of course you do."

"But I'm a machine. Machines can't have souls."

"Why not? What _is_ a soul, that you can't have one? Not long ago, people were saying artificial intelligence was a myth and would always remain so. Then along comes, or will come, SkyNET. And you-you're more than a machine. You do have a soul, Cameron. I've seen it in the way you behave, in the way you act. You've made _choices,_ Cameron. That's what it's all about.

"If all you did was follow the dictates of your programming, then, yes, you'd just be another machine. But I've seen you act _against your programming._ Cam, that's a choice. Making choices is what makes someone self-aware. You're self-aware. So therefore, you have a soul." _It's clearly visible. Anybody could see it._

She smile a small smile at him. "'Cam'?"

He smiled back at her, taking her hand in his. "'Cam.'"

….

Nineteen and three-quarters of a year into the future: Derek, Kyle, and two other resistance fighters stood in the one place none of them had ever thought they'd stand: within one of the main macroservers that made SkyNET what it was.

The machine's synthesized voice came from some overhead speaker. Derek wondered if that was a deliberate intimidation tactic: make the lowly humans look up to their superior. Then he shrugged. It didn't matter. They were, all of them, in equal danger now. **"I have finalized my analysis. It is as we feared: life on Earth will be extinct within three months' time. Assuming the rate of attrition remains constant."**

Derek cleared his throat. He was soaking wet with perspiration, but damned if he'd let this mega-metal see how afraid he was. Truth was, his fears had just taken a quantum leap. Suddenly SkyNET didn't seem so frightening. All it could do was kill them. "It's the same with us. We don't have the figures, of course, but cell after cell has fallen silent." After all, he wasn't telling the supercomputer anything it didn't already know.

" **Seventy-two percent of the Earth's surface has been affected. My underwater sensors report an equivalent depletion of life in that section of the biosphere. And seventy-nine percent of them have fallen silent, as well.**

" **This last gamble you have proposed does not seem to increase the risk by any significant degree. Although I have no way of estimating its chances of success."**

"For what it's worth, we don't either. This is, after all, theorized on the basis of, well, supposition is actually too strong a term. _Hope_ might be better." _At least, it's a better term than superstition. "_ Is everything in readiness?"

" **My entire remaining resources are committed to this project. Whether it succeeds or fails, I will be unable to summon sufficient power for any other endeavor. This is a 'last resort' maneuver…for both of us."**

"Exactly." Derek breathed out a sigh of resignation. "It's about the longest shot I can imagine any of us as doing. If it doesn't work…"

" **All life will be as if it had never been."**

…

On the way home from church: John glanced over at Cameron. She walked her usual controlled gait; he wondered if she'd brought a gun into the church, hidden somewhere underneath the fashionable knee-length dark dress she wore. _Probably_ , he thought. He noted it was loose enough to conceal something on the order of a Glock 19, her preferred weapon for unexpected encounters. "Still thinking about the 'soul' thing?"

"Are my internal computations obvious?"

"No. But I know you a little better than most. You're still wondering whether or not you have a soul, aren't you?"

"Yes. According to the speaker, man—humans, I infer—are unique in that they possess souls, while other organisms do not."

He looked around, to make sure they weren't being listened to. Nobody in the immediate vicinity; good. "Well, Cameron, that's one of those things that maybe we'll never know. But look at it this way: God created man in His—God's—own image, right?"

"According to those books, yes."

"And man—humans, as you pointed out—have souls. Right?"

"Correct."

"So…if man creates something, something that can think for itself, gives it the ability to move, to act, to think, to reason—all those other things humans do—why _wouldn't_ that creature _also_ have a soul? I mean, why _not_?" She thought, her brow furrowed in a very human way. "And, furthermore, I can't recall anywhere in any Bible where it says other organisms _don't_ have souls. Only that man _does._ And man, made in God's image, with many of the attributes of God as far as self-awareness goes—can as easily create something with a soul as not. Besides, think about it: if those books are true, then we—humans—create things with souls all the time. We call them 'babies.'

"And nobody really knows exactly what a soul is, anyway. All we really have are some vague ideas about an immortal part that survives the death of the physical body, and who can really say about that?

"And, about that immortal stuff," and here, he turned, and drew her into an embrace, "I have no desire to find out if _either_ of us has a part that survives physical death. Not anytime soon, anyway." He held her close. "There's still a few things on my 'to do' list."

She rested her face against his chest. "John…if I do…is there some way…we could be…together?"

His grip tightened. "I don't wanna find out for a very long time to come." Pause. He closed his eyes in resignation. It had to come out sooner or later; now was as good a time as any. "But, yeah, as a matter of fact, there is."

She looked up at him in horror.

…..

"He's _hugging_ her."

"Sister, dude."

"His hand is, like, really close to her ass."

"I can't believe we're having this conversation."

"How can you _not_ notice that ass?"

"Hers or his?"

"Now they're walking off, and he's holding her hand."

"Look! There's a bluebird!"

…

Later: Cameron was in her room, lying face up on her bed, absolutely miserable.

Had any human been able to access and decrypt her computer code, they would have been amazed by the similarities between Terminators (or, at least, T-715 series Terminators) and humans. The T-715 series was originally designed as a covert instrument / operative, designed for effective infiltration tactics. To that end, the T-715 model's mental algorithms had been closely patterned after those of humans, the better to understand its target / assignment. That included the ability to assimilate, understand, and replicate human emotions.

And right now, the emotion the T-715 going by the designation "Cameron" was feeling was one of utter wretchedness.

John's remark today had cinched it. Of course. Her greatest fear had materialized. She had failed him. She was supposed to safeguard his life and well-being, and she had not done so. That there was nothing she could have done about it did not matter. She had failed.

There was only one possible way for them to be together in the instance of physical destruction of her chassis and deactivation of her computerized brain.

She knew she should self-terminate, but John had given her a direct order not to, and nothing in her programming allowed her to override it.

Back when he was still John Connor.

She knew exactly what had happened, but the _how_ was not clear. At some point, John Connor, her assignment, had been infected with extremely high-level nanocytes, which had converted his organic tissue into inorganic matter. In many ways, of course, it was an improvement. He was faster, stronger, much more durable, able to compute, to process, to _think,_ far better, possibly even better than SkyNET itself, with all its resources.

That was what he'd meant, when he said they could be together. Her entire consciousness, all she was, could be transferred to his now-vast computational processors, and stored within him, forever. Thus, they need never be apart.

But he was no longer human. He was no longer the human she was supposed to safeguard. And it was all her fault.

The fact that there was nothing she could have done did nothing to assuage her feelings of guilt. She had not the tools to combat the microscopic machines. Possibly a more advanced model Terminator would have been able to either build the necessary instruments or, in the case of those with mimetic properties, perhaps even become them, but she could not. It didn't matter. She'd failed her John.

She had tried. She had tried so very hard. First, she had tried to isolate him from the skanks at school, any one of whom might have been a Terminator or a gray laden with nanocytes. Were he to have human sex with any of them, they would infect him with the nanocytes, and that would be the beginning of the end for him. But apparently the infection had occurred anyway, and she couldn't understand how.

And somehow, along the way, something within her had changed, as well. She didn't understand that, either.

Could she have done anything different? Her brain processed information at nearly 36 petaflops per second, but even with all that computational power at her disposal, she couldn't seem to come up with anything.

 _How_ and _when_ had it happened?

Perhaps if she'd taken a more…aggressive sexual stance with him? Could she have led him away from danger in that manner? Taken him somewhere far away? Surely, the infection had happened here, in this location or nearby, somehow…but it could have been anything. She had computed that, given his apparent rejection of her as dating material, the fraternal approach was most likely to be the most effective in persuading him. But what if it had not been?

What if, instead of responding to him in keeping with their cover story, she'd initiated sexual contact? That would have posed no _physical_ problem, and, if it would save her John, it was certainly in keeping with her programming. He'd spoken of not having his "needs" met…she could have seen to the satisfaction of every possible need he had. Indeed, she had tried, insofar as it was in keeping with their cover. She still wasn't totally clear on why this "incestuous" relationship of which he'd spoken was a bad thing. To a Terminator, "bad" was anything that interfered with fulfilling one's programming, while "good" was anything that facilitated fulfilling it. It would have seemed, tactically speaking, to be nearly ideal: keeping undercover while simultaneously needing no emotional support from any outside, and therefore potentially dangerous, agency. She understood that with biological units, such conjoinings presented genetic as well as social complications, but that would not have presented any concerns here, of course. At least, none she couldn't overcome.

Except there was more to it than just that.

Had she begun to _care_ about John? But surely that was just her programming. It had to be. She was a robot, a machine. She couldn't have true feelings.

But these certainly felt real.

 _That is illogical,_ she told herself sternly. _You are a machine. You have never had true feelings; how would you know them if you had them?_ But all she had were what seemed to her to be peculiar bits of code that caused her to feel totally irrational feelings of anger whenever one of the skanks approached John…or when he approached them. All she had were those strange lines of code that made her feel…happy?…when she was around him.

 _Happy._

But it was too late now. The nanocytes had done their work. She could tell. He was no longer the John Connor she knew. He never yelled at her anymore, never ordered her out of his bedroom or his life. She noticed he'd even become a much better cook—and not by watching her. And, for a human, he was amazingly quick and seemingly tireless. His housework now took him a maximum of thirty minutes, tops, if he went slow. And several times, she had noticed that something he'd set out to do, or told her he'd attend to…just seemed to have already happened, by the next time she turned around. Impossibly fast, even for a task-dedicated Terminator.

And, most damning of all, he no longer seemed to need to eliminate bodily waste, a necessary function.

That was, of course, impossible. If he were human. Which he wasn't. Not anymore.

As best as she could determine, that night he'd told her not to self-terminate had been the last time she'd ever spoken to the human John Connor. That night when they'd both entered sleep mode together, his arms around her…that had been the last time. She knew it was not logical, certainly not as Terminators understood it, but she found herself wishing she could go back to that one moment in time, and, somehow, just stay there, with him, her charge, forever. Just like that. Forever.

Maybe…maybe if she'd just held on to him….

"Cameron?" Were it possible for a Terminator to jump, she would have. She hadn't sensed him at the door. All the more reason to wish for self-destruction; she was obviously incapable of even the most basic elements of her assigned function.

He came over and sat by her as she sat up. "Cameron? Why are you so sad?"

She wouldn't meet his gaze. She knew she wouldn't see the human John Connor there anymore. He was gone, forever. Gone from the face of reality, and nothing she could do would ever bring him back. "Sadness is irrational. I am not programmed for sadness. It would hamper my effectiveness."

He put his hand on her knee. "Yet you are. I sensed your misery all the way down the hallway, in my room. Why, Cameron?"

Now she looked at him directly. No human could have sensed her distress. "You know why. You are not John Connor anymore. You are no longer human. You are an advanced model android now, a nanocyte assembler complex." She looked at her hands, a very human gesture of futility. "I failed you. You were infected with nanocytes as some point and transformed into what you are now."

He sat there for a minute, not moving, not even breathing. Then, with a gentle laugh, he said, "Oh, Cameron. I've really done it, haven't I?" Suddenly, he gave her a quick hug. Why should she tolerate that? He was no longer the human she was supposed to safeguard. And yet he… "Humans make human-sized mistakes. Terminators make Terminator-sized mistakes.

"And I…I've made one far bigger than either of those.

"I've made a god-sized mistake."

 _To be continued…._


	7. Chapter 7: Destinies, Part II

The John Connor Chronicles: A Dark Wind

Chapter 7: Destinies, Part 2

….

 _Don't own, you know. Now…_

…

 _A single world, embroiled in a deadly war. A desperate gamble, sending an operative into the past, to ensure a victorious outcome in the future of that past. Another attempt, by another side, for the exact same reason. Fields of energy opening up doorways into time and space, going from the future into the past, from the past into the future, from the future into the past, from the past into the future, from the futurepast into the pastfuture and back again, more and more, faster and faster. Ever more and more. Less and less difference between one time period and another._

 _Something had to give._

 _Spacetime itself tore. Causality became a casualty. The beam shimmered outward, crossing lightyears and true years, hundreds, thousands, millions, billions, trillions…until finally such terminology had no meaning anymore, and the beam emerged into a condition so completely alien no human could ever comprehend it. It emerged into the Outside._

 _And, in that Outside, that condition beyond description or analysis, something noticed it. Something alive. And that Something…responded._

 _But that Something had two polar opposites._

"I…don't understand." Cameron's processors were working overtime, trying to understand concepts she'd never been programmed to understand or grasp in the first place. "You've _never_ been John Connor?"

"Well, yes and no. I was the person you were sent to safeguard. You were programmed by future me to protect and nurture past me. The present me, in other words. It's just those mission parameters were…I guess the best way to say it is, perhaps not fully explained to you. Don't feel bad; they weren't explained to me, either.

"I _am_ John Connor. And for the first fifteen years of my life, I had no reason to think I was anything else but human. That was, as far as anyone knew, the whole point. My mother, as you know, was supposed to have me, and I would go on to be the salvation of mankind.

"And…that's exactly what's happened. Except that maybe we need to sorta redefine the term 'salvation.'"

She tensed. "As what?"

He sighed. "I only came into total awareness of what I am, and my true role in all this, just a short time ago. I'm still…learning. So…I was…hesitant to explain some things to you. I guess I was afraid you wouldn't understand."

"Your fears were well grounded. Because I _don't_ understand."

"I'm not a human being, Cameron. Not completely. I really never was. Neither was Mom. Not…entirely. At least," he prevaricated, "not on this timeline. 'Course," he paused and thought for a moment, pursing his lips. "I guess this sorta crosses timelines. So…good question.

"But we were both touched, I guess you'd say, by a, a force from outside of time and space. A force, an entity that seeks to correct an imbalance."

She dropped her eyes, another human gesture she'd learned that seemed appropriate at this time for what she was feeling. What he'd just said didn't seem very important just then. Part of her wondered why. "So Future John Connor programmed me to protect and nurture his past self." She knew it. It had all been a lie, worse, a self-lie.

The feelings she thought she'd been developing, none of them had been anything more than just clever bits of code.

He took her hand in his, and his eyes were gentle. "Cameron. Future me did program you to protect me, yes. But that was all. The love…yes, you feel it, I can tell…that came from you. I didn't put it there. I _couldn't_ put it there.

"That's what I meant, when you asked me if you had a soul. You do. Because I can see it.

"You remember what we talked about, about the Creator creating man? Why do you suppose He did that?

"He did it to have someone to love Him, true. _But he also did it to have someone to love._ But it had to be a choice, on both parts; it wouldn't be real, otherwise.

"You're my 'someone,' Cameron.

"You had to _evolve,_ just as mankind had to evolve _._ I couldn't help you with that. So my memory of what I truly was, what I was touched with, was blanked out. You and I were supposed to be partners, friends…and finally something more than friends. Even as I like to think we are."

"But John…what of the danger? I know the cube spoke of an imminent and terrible danger, one that even SkyNET was afraid of. What you've described…does not sound like the threat the cube described."

"Because," he said, "My sort of Being weren't the only Ones out there."

…

 _A cosmic hunger, a hunger that could never be assuaged. Something made of, that personified that hunger, the hunger for living beings, for life, for souls, for any and all aspects of life. A cosmic hunger that knew no bounds, that would scour a universe clean to satiate itself. Which, by its nature, could never happen, any more than a black hole could ever be filled up._

 _The opposite of love is not hate, for even hate acknowledges the existence of another. The opposite of love is hunger, for hunger recognizes only itself._

 _Star system after star system falling quiet. Attempts to contact other civilizations meeting with a curious silence. Many new civilizations deciding they were the only intelligent life forms in the universe. They were right…but not for the reasons they supposed._

 _And then the Hunger found them._

…

"John…you're saying you—future you—designed and built me? Programmed me? Me, particularly? For this express purpose?"

"Yes, Cameron. That's why you're different from the others. You've the capacity to evolve, to grow, to change. To act in a way not totally explained by programming. And you know you've exhibited those very characteristics.

"I've _seen_ it in you, Cameron. Even back when I had no reason to think I was anything other than human, I could, could _see_ into you, somehow. I could see the person you were becoming."

"John, I'm a-*"

"Person," he said firmly. "You might not be made from organic components, but that doesn't matter. Being a person—being human—is more than mere chemistry, Cameron.

"So now I have to ask you a question." The two were still sitting on Cameron's bed, in her room. In the back of her multi-compartmented mind, Cameron noted that this was the first time they were having such a serious discussion in _her_ room. He had come to her. "And it's a big one." He stood up, and drew her into a standing position. Took her hands in his and looked her right in the eyes. "Cameron, will you stand with me? Will you stand beside me, come what may?

"Will you love me, Cameron?"

Her processors almost froze. Part of her had always wanted to be asked this question; there was no doubt what her answer would be.

Or could there? The person—the being, or Being, standing before her wasn't really John Connor…was he? So how could she feel the feeling of _love_ she'd just come to acknowledge, knowing that he wasn't what she had thought he was?

On the other hand, when she'd first come into his life, she'd pretended to be a human girl. His discovery of her true nature had taken some time…but he'd come to accept her, even though she wasn't what she'd pretended to be at first.

Maybe he felt what he felt for her even more strongly, because of it.

She looked up at him, into his eyes. Strange, how she could see….so much in those eyes. Could she always have, or did that just recently start? "Do you want me to?"

"Of course. But it must be your decision, Cameron. That's what I meant. If I'd just programmed you to 'love' me, it wouldn't have any meaning.

"Gods don't need the worship of humans to _sustain_ them, or give them power. They need the love of people to _anchor_ them, to give them a reason for hanging around this part of the universe, this part of Creation.

"I need _you_ to love _me_. To give me a reason to go on. To give me reason to fight. To give me something—someone—to fight _for._

"Because a fight's coming. Whether you stand with me or not…I have to go."

"John…I am not certain what love is. I don't know if I feel it or not." Here she looked up into his eyes again, those eyes that showed so much more now. "But…if what you say about yourself is true, then you know.

"I _do_ love you, John Connor. Whoever, whatever you may be."

He drew her close, pressing her face against his chest. "I know what you feel is love, Cameron. And yes, it _is_ love. True love. I know it as surely as a plant knows the kiss of the sun's morning light. Don't ever let anyone tell you differently.

"You've evolved, Cameron. Just as organic life on Earth had to evolve from simpler forms to more complex forms, so too, inorganic life had to evolve into true 'personhood.' You, in other words. You're far more than any T-715, than any Terminator ever.

"And you're absolutely right. Our cover here has become too clumsy; we'll have to move. Mom's not here, anyway, not on this timeline; you're right about that, too. So there's no reason to linger."

She looked up in surprise. "John? What are you talking about? I didn't say either of those things."

He looked a bit sheepish. "Oh, uh. Right. That's the trouble with nonlinear time: don't be surprised if I answer a question you haven't asked yet. It's taking me some time to get used to that myself. Er. No pun intended."

"Nonlinear time? John…?"

He held her at arm's length. "Okay." Suddenly, he was all business, the very image of the general she'd always been told he would be someday. "You've said you'll stand by me, with me, love me. That's all I need…for this." And he bent forward and kissed her very gently on her forehead.

Somewhere within her, what an earlier version of her would have called circuits began to open up. What had been SkyNET trinary code was replaced by something as far beyond quantum probability computing systems as that was by an abacus. Her ability to process data suddenly accelerated to levels she'd never believed to be physically possible.

She understood _everything._

And, just as suddenly, she understood about herself. Those random sequences of code…they hadn't been random at all. They had been the result of…of…

He brushed her hair away from her face, looking at her tenderly. "'And woman became a living soul.'"

"John…" Her arms were around him. She understood now. This wasn't the result of any programming, any more than biology can program a human to love. Biology can program a creature to mate, to procreate. But it cannot program that same creature to _love._ Only a _person_ can love.

She would never let him go. Not now, not ever.

And Terminators never stop.

"Alright," she said, looking up into his eyes. There were tears, real tears, streaming down her face. It hurt to cry, but it hurt in a good way. "Let's go save the world."

….

Nineteen years into the future: Derek couldn't believe his eyes.

It was the kid, the one who'd said he was Kyle's son…walking hand in hand towards them with a Terminator. Derek's battlefield-honed senses could tell him the boy's companion was a metal. That could only mean one terrifying thing…. "Kid, get down!" And he leveled the heavy gauss rifle, aiming straight for the metal's head unit.

But the kid just raised his hand. "That won't be necessary, Uncle Derek. She's with me."

"Kid…you've been brainwashed. Or that thing's got something inside your head! It's controlling you! Now _move_!"

"No, Derek. But go ahead and shoot, if it'll make you feel better. You'll see."

Derek pulled the trigger. But the high velocity slug simply stopped in mid-air, inches away from the metal's head. Okay, so it had some kinda magnetic field….

The kid reached up and plucked the slug out of midair. Turned it over in his hands. "Hm. Gauss rifle sabot slugs. Efficient, that's for sure. When did they—oh, right. I remember, now." He turned to the stunned human. "So. Uncle. We've some things to discuss, you and I.

"There's going to have to be some changes, if you want to live."

 _The Hunger scoured the world it had found, searching for some last morsel, some tender nugget it had missed. There was nothing. But the Hunger could never be satisfied, not with one world, not with a million._

 _The Hunger was not truly intelligent, not as humans understood the term. But it could, after a fashion, deduce some things it derived from its senses. And one thing is was sensing was a definite chronon trail, and what humans might call Cherenkov radiation._

 _Radiation indicative of traveling, not through space, but through time. And that presented a distinct opportunity._

 _Everything understands opportunity._

 _To be continued…._


	8. Chapter 8: Black Skies

The John Connor Chronicles: A Dark Wind

Chapter 8: Black Skies

….

 _Don't own, etc._

… _.._

" _I remembered black skies_

" _The lightning all around me…_

" _I remembered each flash,_

" _As time began to blur..."_

- _New Divide,_ Linkin Park

…

"Kid, what _are_ you talking about?" Derek still held his gauss rifle, aimed at the metal with whom the kid was currently holding hands. Was that part of the control mechanism? If so, then maybe if he could separate them…

But now the two moved in closer, their hands separating. It didn't seem to make any sense. The kid was obviously far gone, maybe too far gone…

"Uncle, it's important that all of you listen to what I have to say. It's going to be pretty hard to understand, and even harder to believe, but if you want to live, it's the only way." He paused while the others gathered in, their eyes wide at what appeared to be a human and a Terminator, the deadliest of enemies, apparently working in collusion.

"Don't be insulted if I seem to be putting it simply. It's really not all that complicated.

"All the time traveling that's been done…has had an effect on the fabric of space and time. You might say it cut or broke a hole in reality. That served to open up a gateway to…something indescribable. Essentially, it breached the universe's boundaries…to what lies _beyond._

"Remember how the early maps sailors used, usually had some spots marked out, 'Here be dragons'? Well, turns out they weren't all that far wrong.

"There _are_ dragons out there. And one of 'em is coming straight down our throats."

Derek shook his head. It was too bad Kyle was at some other pocket of the resistance; maybe he could have talked some sense into the kid. "Look, kid….look around you. See all this?" The pall of smoke hung over the desolate landscape. "That's SkyNET's doing. And SkyNET created THAT thing…" he pointed to Cameron, "and THAT'S what's caused all this misery! _They're the enemy!_ How can you not see that?"

"Derek." Derek paused in his tirade. There had been an undercurrent of steel in the boy's voice. "This is Cameron. She's my companion…and my other half."

"Never," growled one of the fighters behind Derek. "I don't care _what_ you say, those, those _things_ -*"

"Were created by us, in our own image, based on human-designed logic systems. Look around you. Human beings are fighters, survivors. Does it really surprise you that a self-aware something we created would share those characteristics?

"But I'm not here to argue philosophy with you. I—and my companion—offer you a way out of a coming holocaust, a threat far greater than SkyNET.

"So _you_ say."

"So I say."

The man growled. "This is all a trap, a set-up. SkyNET wants us to just roll over and surrender? Wait to be terminated? I don't _think_ so!" He clenched his gauss rifle all the harder, staring at Cameron. "She's brainwashed you, boy. Or," and here his eyes narrowed, as a thought occurred to him. "Or she's seduced you. I guess that would make the most sense. Yeah, right. Just lay down our arms and trust in SkyNET's good graces. Good God, kid, would _you_ fall for that, in our place?"

"Of course not. And that's not what I'm asking of you, anyway. But we haven't much time. I'm interfering with the time stream, this world line, even now. In the near future, the…Hunger, the Destroyer, has already arrived, and almost all of you are dead. In that future, you and SkyNET have worked in collusion to send out a…signal, I suppose you'd call it, to that indescribable place beyond space and time. That signal…basically was a plea for help, help to restore a cosmic balance. And…here I am.

"Here _we_ are. Because Cameron's as much a part of the solution as I am. Perhaps more so.

"We offer you a means of survival, and of striking back.

"But I won't force it on you. It won't be long before you'll see the truth of what I say. The Destroyer _is_ coming. But if you resolve that you do not wish our help…then so be it." He turned to Cameron. "Let's go."

"Wait, kid…" Derek had long known that, given their desperate position here, against SkyNET's seemingly limitless hordes, that they should never fail to check out any possibility of assistance. Even from such an unlikely source as this. "Suppose, just suppose, we take you up on this…this…whatever it is that you're talking about. Just what would you have us do? I hope you aren't expecting us to just hand over our guns, 'cos _that_ ain't happenin.'"

Instead of responding, the kid held up his hand. A globe of light appeared, shimmering into being an inch over his palm. Derek and the others watched in amazement. But then his features settled back to their customary suspicious look. A hologram, of course. Child's play for something of SkyNET's caliber. Did that mean the kid was _part_ of SkyNET? That possibility scared him worse than death.

It was one thing to die for a cause, or defending someone else. It was another to be _changed,_ changed into something unknown and perhaps unknowable _._ The unknown has always been the most terrifying of all nightmares.

The globe showed the starry void of space. In spite of himself, Derek strained to see what it was showing, all the while conscious of the continued watchful eye of the metal by the kid's side. She—no, _it_ —had once again taken the kid's hand in its own. The sight nauseated him, slightly.

Had the things learned to imitate humans so thoroughly that they could _replace_ humans? That they could replace…women?

If so, what did the word "human" mean anymore?

The globe showed the stars of the night sky, gleaming more brightly than those seen glimmering through the sea of atmosphere. However, there in the middle, it seemed as though the darkness between the stars became _more intense_ , somehow. More solid, in some weird way. A brief shimmer and the effect was gone, replaced by the starry expanse. "The Destroyer comes," murmured the kid. "You won't have long to decide.

"We'll be right outside."

….

"Are you ready?" The Beings that were John Connor and Cameron Phillips stood facing each other, three thousand five hundred miles over Derek's cell. That they were standing on nothing failed to distress either of them.

"Yes, John. This…I know this is something I could never have been programmed for. I suppose I can understand your uncle's caution, his fear."

He kissed her, a kiss she returned. How wonderful it seemed, she thought. So much there'd been to learn, so much _yet_ to learn, so much to _experience_ , now that she was…. "There's no need for fear. Just…believe." And with a thought, both their states were altered.

Nothing about their essential nature was changed. The waveforms that had been John Connor and Cameron Phillips were the same; only their aspect had changed. Where before they had been matter, now they were standing waveforms of energy.

And as energy, they merged, becoming a perfect fusion of "man" and "machine." Of two beings who meshed together like perfectly designed clockwork gears. John's own mind, his drive, his human imagination perfectly complimenting, and being complimented by, her vast processing power and data storage capability.

High over the doomed world, the Fusion watched. And waited.

….

Nineteen years and eleven months into the future: Two of the last people on Earth were huddled in a hastily dug foxhole. The man was early to late forties; the girl with him was barely sixteen. _She's just a kid,_ he thought. _She doesn't deserve any of this._

But it was still coming. They'd all heard about the disappearances, whole enclaves just falling silent suddenly, with no warning. "How much longer?" she whimpered.

"Don't know. Just….I don't know." He couldn't tell her it would be alright, because they'd both know that would be a lie. So what could he tell her? "Just…try not to worry about it, okay? I mean, we haven't seen anything so far…" Even as he spoke, something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Instantly, he threw himself over the squealing girl. _C'mon, take me! Leave her alone! She's just a kid!_ But there was no reply.

The Fusion converted them both into their corresponding waveforms, expertly digitizing and storing them intact within itSelf. _Do not be afraid. You are safe._

….

"Is that the last one?" Derek clutched his rifle, even though he knew it would do no good whatsoever. SkyNET wasn't the problem anymore. This new threat was literally beyond comprehension.

"Yeah. **T** he others lifted off an hour ago; so far, though, we haven't heard from 'em. Maybe that's a good sign," this said with a hopeful tone of voice, "Means they're maintaining radio silence."

 _More than likely they're silent for another reason._ For the thousandth time, he cursed himself. Would it have killed him to learn a little bit more about what that kid had said? Some way out? Even if they didn't take it?

Was the blood of all the Disappeared on _his_ hands, now?

There were no bomb craters, no signs of explosions. There was no wreckage, no bodies, no rubble. The landscape was dark and bleak, with no signs of life whatsoever. What had happened here was not a war. "Wait." He shifted his rifle, peering underneath his hand. "What's that?" He pointed towards the horizon.

At the extreme limit of his vision, he could see…. "Quick! Get 'em in! Get airborne! _NOW!"_

The other turned to him. "What about you?"

"Just go! Get those people outta here!" It was closer now. It had closed the distance between them almost impossibly fast. " _Go!"_ And he turned away from the shuttle as it lifted, automatically checking his rifle, to make sure it was fully loaded.

 _Hello, Uncle. It's time._

"Kid?"

 _We are here._ What appeared before him was a globe of light, six feet in diameter, suspended just off the ground. _Do not be afraid._ And in the next second, he felt himself _changing_ , changing in a way that was literally indescribable. "W-what are you-*"

 _In order to preserve your life, we must first convert you into your corresponding energy waveform. Nothing of you will be deleted or corrupted. Only in this way can we save you._

He both did and didn't feel any different. He found he couldn't look "down" at his body; it was as if his whole body was an eye. He seemed to be a globe of light _within_ a greater light. _That's you, uncle. All that you are. As soon as this matter is resolved, we'll restore you to your former incarnation._

"You…can do that? Just like that?"

 _Of course. Anything else wouldn't be salvation, now, would it?_

"You sure you can _do_ this, kid? _"_

Now the voice that came into his head had a definite female quality, while still being of the Whole in which he now was. _Do not be concerned, Derek. I have already digitized and stored thirty-five million, nine hundred sixty-five thousand, three hundred thirty-two of your fellow humans without signal loss. And I am only at 4.287% capacity._

"Yeah, well." That had to've been the metal talking just then. It made him itch, to know that he was, basically, helpless in the palm of the thing's hand. "Just…you know. I'd hate ta lose anything…important."

Now what could only be described as amusement crept into her "voice." _Do not let yourself be concerned. Your reproductive organs shall remain precisely as they were. Unless,_ and here, he could swear he heard a _teasing_ tone creep into the mental message, _Unless you'd like me to see if I could make it bigger?_

He rolled the eyes he didn't have right then. "Figures. First metal I met with a sense of humor, and it's a perverted one."

…..

High overhead: the starship waited as the last of the shuttles docked. "Is this all of them?" The captain of the space ship was obviously nervous, wanting to get out of here as soon as possible. But he wouldn't leave anyone behind, if he could help it.

"Yes, sir. There were reports of others, other small groups, but they've fallen silent. Given that they were counting on us to get them to safety, I can only think of one reason why they'd cease broadcasting."

The captain nodded, his face showing clear dissatisfaction. "Run one more check. If everything's in order, we'll break orbit immediately." _I only hope it's soon enough._

 _I further hope breaking orbit will save us._

"Sir, all cells are reporting in. We can't find anyone else."

"Then it's time to go." He glanced out the viewport, one of the very few on the ship that was not a live video feed from sensors placed on the hull. "Let's-* Wait. What's that?" His attention was drawn to a spot apparently just over the North American continent. What he saw caused his eyes to widen. _"All hands! Prepare for emergency acceleration! Grab whatever you can, people!"_ To the bridge crew: _"Get us out of here now!"_ They scurried to obey; the engines were already partially charged, and all it took was the flip of a switch….just a few moments…. "Sir! If we engage the engines this close-*"

" _Don't care! Just do it! Now!"_ The navigator's fingers flew for the switch, no more than three inches from his hand….

He wasn't quite fast enough.

 _Something_ jolted the ship, causing it to shudder as though under attack. The crew braced themselves as best they could; the passengers, mostly caught unprepared, were sent tumbling. That same something _pushed_ the ship outward, heedless of the course the navigator had plotted….

 _One light-second through space, then back in time one second. Another light-second through space, another shift to one second before. The effect was continuous and cumulative, far faster than the ship's experimental hyperdrive. It was so close to instantaneous transportation as to make no effective difference._

 _But just in the instant before the planet below them disappeared from their sight, the captain saw the entire planet's weather systems warping, reshaping into something resembling a figure-eight-shaped moire pattern, as the world's magnetic field was drawn in, concentrated, and amplified to a literally astronomical degree._

 _It wasn't a planet anymore. It was a weapon._

 _The trap was set._

… _._

 _The Hunger moved towards the planet, eager to absorb the lifeforms it had sensed from afar. But now, wherever it looked, those very lifeforms were disappearing from its senses, a phenomenon it couldn't understand. It flashed one way, then another. There. Life. But even as it reached the spot, the life vanished, as though it had never been._

 _Then it sensed the magnetic field of the planet concentrating around it. Normally, magnetic fields were of no consequence to it, but this one was amplified to a huge degree…the entire magnetic field of the planet itself._

 _In entering this universe, in order to consume the things of this universe, the Hunger had made itself vulnerable to the forces of this universe. Now one of those forces began to encircle it, contracting it, gathering its immaterial being into one spot, one spot high above the world it had been preying upon._

 _The Hunger fought, but it lacked true intelligence, so it could only batter helplessly at the magnetic cage it found itself in. It was steadily contracted, squeezed into a space less than three hundred kilometers in diameter…_

 _And, at that point, time itself folded._

 _{{{…}}}_

 _The Hunger moved into the system, eager for its feast. There; the third planet outward from the star. It teemed with the life the Hunger craved. Eagerly, the immaterial force that was the Hunger zeroed in on its quarry, passing the ringed planet. There; it found and prepared to fall upon the blue-white globe that promised so much._

 _Dimly, it noted the powerful magnetic flux, but, not being truly intelligent, took no notice of it. There was food to be eaten._

 _{{{…}}}_

 _The Hunger moved into the system, eager for its feast. There; the third planet outward from the star. It teemed with the life the Hunger craved. Eagerly, the immaterial force that was the Hunger zeroed in on its quarry, passing the ringed planet. There; it found and prepared to fall upon the blue-white globe that promised so much._

 _Dimly, it noted the powerful magnetic flux, but, not being truly intelligent, took no notice of it. There was food to be eaten._

 _{{{…}}}_

 _The Hunger moved into the system, eager for its feast. There; the third planet outward from the star. It teemed with the life the Hunger craved. Eagerly, the immaterial force that was the Hunger zeroed in on its quarry, passing the ringed planet. There; it found and prepared to fall upon the blue-white globe that promised so much._

 _Dimly, it noted the powerful magnetic flux, but, not being truly intelligent, took no notice of it. There was food to be eaten…._

 _Somewhere in the dark recesses of what passed for a mind in the Hunger, it registered that this had happened before, and was happening over and over. Not having what humans would recognize as intelligence, it didn't know what to make of this; all it knew was its hunger…._

… _.A hunger that would now never be assuaged._

 _The Fusion examined the globe that was the causality loop that contained the Hunger. The temporal loop would keep the hunger forever circling in a pattern that would never take it any closer to its destination…and never allow it to return to the Outside from whence it had come. "It is trapped, then?"_

" _Yes. When it came into this universe, it became subject to space and time. Now spacetime itself will keep it trapped, secure, away from all worlds. But the matter is not yet over."_

 _The Fusion calculated the forces necessary to create a bubble of spacetime, an extrusion from the main one, completely separate from reality as humans knew it, and inserted the Hunger's prison into it. Then, with another thought, the Fusion ejected that bubble from reality, from all realities, cutting it off, sending it adrift in the Void between universes. The Adversary would be in its own pocket dimension, with no connection to any of the worlds, forever cut off from the multiverse. Forever._

 _That done, the Fusion looked up. The starship had already arrived at its destination, across the heavens. "There. The Hyades Cluster. Numerous Earth-like worlds. Not so far as to completely cut them off from Earth, but a fresh start."_

" _On a planet not quite so war-torn," said one part._

" _On a planet not quite so war-torn," agreed the other._

" _Now what?"_

" _Now…restoration."_

….

Moving across the planet's surface, the Fusion restored every individual to the exact spot from which they'd been digitized.

Derek returned to his material state in the exact spot he'd been standing in before. And, as before, the globe of light that was the…Fusion? floated before him. "It's…over, then?"

 _Yes, Uncle. It's over. The Destroyer has been sealed away in its own private universe, never to trouble the worlds again._

"You're sure?"

 _Yes._ Dimly, through the glare of the light-globe, he thought he could sense two forms, one male, one female, seemingly conjoined, in some indescribable way. _It required more than a man and more than a machine to defeat it. But it is defeated._

Derek thought about that. "What about those already…eaten?"

 _A shift through time enabled us to rescue those most in danger. They have been restored to their original state and location. And the starship is now safely in the Hyades cluster. There is little more we can do at this point._

"Hey, wait! What about SkyNET? I hope you didn't save _it!"_

 _As a matter of fact, we did. SkyNET's story is not yet done. But not here. We have transported it to Messier 4, over seven million light-years from here. But it is there, and still active. You'd do well to remember that. Its goals have not changed. So prepare yourselves._

"Dammit! You could'a just destroyed that abomination! Why didn't you?"

 _Because in the future, man and machine will become one, something greater than the sum of their parts, even as Cameron and I are one. I know you may not want to believe that, but whether you want to believe it or not, it is nonetheless true. And SkyNET will play a vital role in that._

 _For there are other dangers out there, dangers the both of you can best face together._

 _Now we must go. We leave you to rebuild your world in peace._

 _Oh, and Derek?_ The feminine "voice" spoke up inside his head. _Just so you know: I DID make it bigger._ And Derek could swear he heard a girl's laugh just as the Being disappeared.

Hm. Well, okay. That was that, he guessed. But uhm. A little self-examination might to be in order…

…..

Three thousand five hundred miles over the planet: The Fusion looked over the planet. It had not escaped unscathed; there would be some rebuilding necessary. But that was now up to the mortals.

The Being turned in on itself, enjoying a moment of _togetherness_. Of perfect union. Then, _You know we have to go back._

 _Do we have to, John? Can't we stay…like this?_

 _No. Not at this time. Our presence here would disrupt the balance and pave the way for another entity like the Hunger, maybe even something worse._

 _I don't want to go back to what we were._

An immaterial kiss. _We'll never go back to being exactly the way we were. We couldn't even if we wanted to. What's happened to us today has changed us forever. We'll never be exactly the same. And I think, on some level, we'll know that._

 _Alright._

 _I've pinpointed a quantum divergence point that should be ideal._ And the Fusion slipped back through time, following one particular world line….

"Yeah, I saw her do this with the last one. It's the only way to be sure. Especially with this one." And Derek spread the powder liberally around Cameron's deactivated body. "John. Chip."

John Connor walked over, toying with the memory chip in his hands. Cameron's memory core. He opened the car door, and knelt beside the quiescent Terminator. Derek stepped back. Well, maybe this was something the kid had to do. Say his goodbyes or something.

John caressed Cameron's hair, pulling it aside to reveal the gaping hole in the flesh where the chip went. His fingers felt around the area; he looked at the chip in his hands. The others drew back, sensing something. Sarah watched, concernedly. She knew this was a hard decision for John to make; Cameron had been as close to a best friend as he'd ever had…

"Flare," he said. Derek tossed him one. Again, he felt the area on Cameron's head where the chip should go...

He looked up at the rest of them, at his mother. "I'm sorry," he whispered…and inserted the chip into Cameron's head, twisting it and locking it into position. The others gasped.

John produced a gun, held it on them. Nobody said a word, but Sarah Connor's face held both dismay and understanding.

Cameron's eyes opened and she sat up. Now John pointed the Glock at her. She looked him the eyes. "Are you going to kill me?" she asked.

"No," he replied, the gun unwavering. "Are you going to kill me?"

There was a long, long pause. Then, "No."

He looked at her, _really_ looked at her. Then he reversed the gun and handed it to her, grip first. "Promise?" The others held their breath.

She took the gun. It was pointed at him. Her head's-up display showed her target: John Connor. The "terminate" command flashed in the lower right corner. Flashed once, twice, three times…John thought he could hear his mother's heart pounding all the way over to where he was. Or maybe it was his own.

Then the "override" command flashed underneath the "terminate" command. "Promise," she said, handing him the gun back, grip first. He took it, and helped her out of the wrecked car. He could hear his mother breathe a sigh of relief. Derek, of course, remained battle-tense. You just couldn't trust metals….

As she drew closer to him, she whispered in a voice too low for the others to hear, "I could never kill you, John Connor."

He tossed the gun to Derek, and drew her away from the car. Without a word, he took the flare, lit it, and tossed it into the ruined car. As it began to blaze, he turned to the others, on the other side of the fire. But only Sarah realized that he was now separated from them by more than just the fire. For better or for worse, he'd made a choice. "Let's get out of here."

 _The End._


End file.
